Mexico

Ambulante Film Festival uses documentary film as a tool for social and cultural change. Ambulante brings documentary films and training programs to places where they are rarely available in order to foster a cultural exchange, encourage a participative, informed and critical attitude in audiences, and open new channels of expression in Mexico and abroad. For the past 15 years they have been producing and showcasing stories about migrants, their families and communities.

The National Institute of Migration is an administrative body, under the Ministry of the Interior of Mexico, which applies the Mexican laws and international treaties to grant all foreigners the necessary facilities to carry out legal, orderly and safe migration procedures that allow their entry and stay in the national territory. 

Across Latin America and the Caribbean, Banking on Women helps financial institutions offer women entrepreneurs financial and non-financial services such as advisory support. Through Banking on Women, IFC has supported female entrepreneurs with direct investments, mobilized investments, and advice through banks in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Mexico.

Considering the need to guarantee the protection and integration of people in mobility contexts, Mexico proposes a “Comprehensive and Sustainable Strategy for the Protection and Integration of Migrants" through actions with differentiated criteria that facilitate their integration.

This Strategy has a mechanism for the monitoring and follow-up of actions and programs, in order to guarantee the protection and integration of this population.

The Law on Refugees, Complementary Protection and Political Asylum incorporates the concept of “complementary protection”. A person who does not comply with the criteria defined by such law to be recognized as a refugee, can be granted complementary protection to prevent their return to a country where their life could be in danger. Beneficiaries of complementary protection have a documented stay in the country, freedom of movement, access to gainful employment, as well as basic social rights.

The Mexican legislation provides for a humanitarian residence permit for migrants who are victims or witnesses of a crime committed in the national territory. 

In order to better deal with inclusion and integration, Mexico conducted an assessment to identify institutional competencies and attributions at different levels of government, analyze competences, identify the needs of institutions and migrants respectively, and streamline service provision across the country based on available resources for migrants’ care. The assessment enabled the Government to identify key partnerships based on the data collected through the assessment.

Mexico has been implementing programs to evaluate and certify middle skilled workers for migrants with relatively lower levels of formal education but who have acquired significant and complex skills through on-the-job learning. Migrants that fit this profile include, for example, skilled construction workers, experienced garment manufacturers, workers in the high-end service and hospitality industry, and home-health care providers.

The ILO signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Fruit and Vegetable Alliance (AHIFORES) to carry out joint work on mainstreaming the General Principles and Operational Guidelines for Fair Recruitment in Mexico. They inded to cooperate on the certification scheme "DEAR", as well as developing a tool box to address recruitment practices in horticulture and vegetable supply chains in partnership with Verité.

The Migrant Support Fund is a federal fund administered to states according to the size of their repatriated migrant populations, which provides migrants one-time seed grants of up to USD 1,500 to start a new business.

Because the Mexican labor market is saturated and often unfamiliar to returning migrants, especially those who have been abroad for an extended period, these entrepreneurial and self-employment opportunities offer a key path to their economic reintegration.