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CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) - A group of 500 Haitian migrants who arrived in the northern state of Tamaulipas by buses and were dropped from their vehicles by immigration authorities and the National Guard continued their march north on foot.

The migrants were forced to get off buses early Friday when they were about 200 kilometers south of the Texas border.

According to the state government in a statement, "military authorities notified them that they could not continue their transit aboard passenger buses" and that is why the migrants began to walk.

The statement did not clarify whether they were taken off the buses for not having documents in order.

Some Haitians get humanitarian visas to be able to move legally through Mexican territory. Others only have documents that prove that they requested refuge in Mexico and, in these cases, they can only legally circulate within the state where they made that request.

The migrants, including families with children, began to walk at 4 in the morning from a point south of the town of San Fernando, a municipality that in 2010 was the scene of the massacre of 72 migrants by the criminal group The Zetas.

Joseph Junior Abellaro, one of the migrants, explained in an interview with a local media that the buses in which they were traveling left Poza Rica, Veracruz, bound for Reynosa, Tamaulipas, bordering McAllen.