David Agren

Special to USA TODAY

ARRIAGA, MEXICO — Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto unveiled a plan Friday to provide migrants in southern Mexico with temporary work permits and access to public health benefits, education and shelters.

The plan targets the caravan of Central American migrants, which is winding its way through the southern state of Chiapas and shows few signs of petering out — even as the participants endure discomfort and diseases on their long daily treks.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to deny the caravan entry into the United States.

"You’re at home," Peña Nieto said in a Friday afternoon video statement.

"If you still haven’t done it and form part of the migrant caravan, there is still time to start the process for regularizing your (immigration) situation," he said. "You will receive medical attention and send your children to school. You will have an official, temporary identification to do the necessary paperwork while you regularize your situation."

Peña Nieto, who leaves office Dec. 1, previously said participants in the caravan were free to request asylum in Mexico, but anyone lacking the proper documents would be detained and deported.

READ MORE: Central American migrant caravan: Where are they now?

President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador also promised to provide work permits for Central American migrants as the caravan arrived at Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala in recent days. He previously said Mexico would “not do the dirty work of any foreign government," but has not repeated that pledge since the campaign.

The U.S.-bound caravan has been the subject of widely varying size estimates. Organizers have said it numbers as many as 10,000 people, many from Honduras, who crossed from Guatemala into Mexico and are now moving north slowly, on foot.

Some migrants have described deteriorating conditions in Honduras after an election many believe was marred by fraud.

More than 1,700 caravan members have applied for asylum in Mexico and are being housed and fed at a camp in the city of Tapachula near the Guatemala border. Advocates working on migration issues say Mexico’s agency for adjudicating asylum claims is still sorting through a crushing backlog.

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to raise concerns about the migrants, who remain more than 1,000 miles from the nearest part of the United States. He is suggesting sending 800 U.S. troops to the border and somehow close the border entirely.

On Thursday, reports surfaced that Trump was considering a proclamation imposing travel restrictions on migrants along the southern border, using the same rationale for his controversial travel ban for several Muslim-majority countries.

In Mexico, Peña Nieto has boasted of record-low unemployment south of the border, though Mexicans often complain of low pay, rising prices and suffering an erosion in their purchasing power. Mexico’s minimum wage is just $4.50 per day.

The caravan arrived Friday in the city of Arriaga, where a freight train known as "La Bestia" starts rumbling north. The migrants walked and hitched rides for roughly 60 miles under oppressive heat and at times through the acrid smoke of brush being burned along the side of the highway.

READ MORE: Migrant caravan: What you need to know

Mexico held little appeal for some of the caravan participants — some of who cling to “el sueño americano” (the American Dream).

"We want to earn dollars," said Pedro José, 30, who earned 50 quetzales, about $6, per day as a bricklayer’s assistant in Guatemala.

"Mexico is little different from where we came. Maybe you’ll earn a peso more (roughly 5 cents.) That’s it."