Temporary or permanent residency denied
A refusal letter with no real legal grounds, or one that dismisses your proof of income, savings or family ties without explaining why. The most common case, and the one most often won.
Residency denied, status cancelled, a migratory alert you found out about at the airport, or a deportation proceeding already running. Mexico's National Immigration Institute is an authority like any other, and its decisions can be reviewed by a federal court. Flat fee of MX$12,900, anywhere in the country.
Free assessment within 24 h · If refiling is faster than litigating, we say so
The amparo is the lawsuit Mexico's Constitution gives you to ask a federal judge whether an authority violated your rights. It comes from articles 103 and 107 of the Constitution and is governed by the Amparo Law. There is no clean equivalent in US or UK procedure: it is closer to a constitutional judicial review than to an administrative appeal, and crucially it is heard by a federal court, not by the agency that made the decision.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. An administrative appeal asks the INM to reconsider its own refusal. An amparo takes the file out of the agency's hands entirely and puts it in front of a judge whose job is to check whether the Constitution and the Migration Law were respected.
It does two things. It can undo the decision, and — usually the more urgent one — it can stop the damage while the case runs. That second part is called the suspension of the challenged act, and in immigration cases it is frequently the difference between fighting from inside Mexico and fighting from your country of origin.
These are the INM and SRE decisions that most often end up before a federal judge:
A refusal letter with no real legal grounds, or one that dismisses your proof of income, savings or family ties without explaining why. The most common case, and the one most often won.
The INM withdraws status you already held, frequently without a genuine prior hearing or without proving the specific statutory ground it invokes.
A flag restricting your entry or exit that you usually discover at the border. Challengeable, especially when it was imposed without ever notifying you.
Detention beyond statutory limits, without consular assistance or without an interpreter. Here the suspension is what matters, not the eventual judgment.
Removal orders issued without due process or against people with established family ties in Mexico. No filing deadline applies to these.
Applications based on family unity or established residence turned down using criteria that appear neither in the Migration Law nor in its regulations.
When the INM refuses to exchange your migration form or renew your card and leaves you irregular through no fault of your own.
Refused naturalisation letters or nationality certificates, miscounted qualifying residence and arbitrary grading of the history and language exams.
Months of silence on a filed application. Failure to respond violates the constitutional right to petition and is challengeable in its own right, with no deadline running against you.
Amparos are lost as untimely far more often than on the merits. But the opposite mistake is just as common: people assume they missed their window when in fact no deadline ever applied to them.
| Challenged act | Deadline to file | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Residency or application refused | 15 business days | From the day after service of the official letter takes effect |
| Immigration status cancelled | 15 business days | Request the suspension immediately alongside the claim |
| Migratory alert | 15 business days | Counted from when you learn of it, not from when it was imposed |
| Deportation or expulsion | Any time | Suspension can be granted outright; a third party may file for you |
| Detention outside a judicial proceeding | Any time | Same urgent category under the Amparo Law |
| INM failure to respond | While the silence lasts | The omission renews itself daily, so nothing expires |
Business days exclude weekends and Mexican federal holidays, and the judiciary observes its own recess periods. If you are close to the line, tell us and we file the same day.
A tax amparo revolves around money: how much they are charging and what you post as security. An immigration amparo revolves around something you cannot replace — whether you can stay in, enter, or leave the country where your life is. Two things follow from that.
First, the suspension. In tax matters you have to guarantee the tax interest before collection stops. In immigration matters, where the act involves deportation, expulsion or restrictions on liberty, the suspension can be granted outright, without a bond and without waiting.
Second, the deadline. The 15-day rule applies to refusals and cancellations. It does not apply to deportation or detention, where you can file at any time. A lot of people stop defending themselves because they believe their window closed. Often it never opened.
Not everything painful is a matter for an amparo, and in immigration there are paths that resolve in weeks what litigation would take months to fix. This is what we weigh in the free assessment:
Send us the INM decision, the receipt for your application or the record of the alert over WhatsApp. If someone is detained, just tell us where they are being held.
We tell you whether an amparo applies, whether an appeal or a corrected refiling is better, and how viable the suspension looks. Free, in English, with no obligation.
A single payment of MX$12,900. We send you the claim to review and sign with an electronic signature, by hand, or through a consular power of attorney if you are abroad.
We file before the competent District Court and update you on every ruling, on the suspension hearing and on the judgment.
Most foreign nationals who write to us about an immigration amparo also have a tax loose end: an RFC registered incorrectly, an unfiled return, or a stalled filing at another agency. That makes sense — residency requirements intersect with proof of income, SAT certificates and apostilled documents.
If that sounds like you, look at our residency services, which cover residency, RFC registration and tax residency, and at dual citizenship if you have Mexican ancestry. Quite often the amparo stops being necessary once the file is built properly from the start.
Yes. Article 1 of the Mexican Constitution protects every person on Mexican territory, regardless of nationality or immigration status. You do not need to be a resident, a citizen, or to hold valid papers. In fact, many immigration amparos are filed precisely by people whose status is in dispute. Foreign companies can file too.
A flat MX$12,900 with VAT included, roughly 650 US dollars at current rates. That covers the review of your INM file, drafting the claim, the request to suspend the challenged act, filing before the competent District Court and follow-up through to first-instance judgment. Certified translations and apostilles are billed separately because they are paid to an authorised translator, not to us.
You generally have 15 business days from the day after service of the refusal to file an amparo. The arguments that succeed most often are that the official letter fails to state adequate legal grounds and reasoning, that your evidence of financial solvency or family ties was assessed arbitrarily, or that the INM applied criteria found nowhere in the Migration Law or its regulations. Sometimes refiling a corrected application is faster and cheaper than litigating, and we will tell you if that is your situation.
File immediately. When the challenged act involves deportation, expulsion or restrictions on personal liberty outside a judicial proceeding, an amparo can be filed at any time, with no deadline, and any person may file it on behalf of the affected individual — a relative, a friend, an employer. The judge can also grant the suspension outright, without a bond, to stop the removal while the case is heard. Message us straight away: in these cases we act first and settle payment afterwards.
Yes. The Migration Law lists several grounds for cancelling your immigration status, including providing false information, ceasing to meet the requirements that supported the permit, or being absent from the country beyond what your status allows. Cancellations are challengeable and are frequently overturned, because they are often issued without a genuine prior hearing or without proving the specific ground invoked. The deadline is 15 business days from service.
It is a flag in the INM system restricting your entry to or exit from Mexico, and most people discover it at the airport. It can be challenged through an amparo, particularly when it was imposed without notice to you, without legal basis, or when the underlying reason no longer exists. Our first step is a formal information request to establish which authority requested it and why, because the strategy changes completely depending on the origin.
In immigration matters the administrative review appeal under the Federal Administrative Procedure Law is optional rather than mandatory, which creates an exception to the finality principle and in many cases lets you go straight to an amparo. It is not automatic: it depends on the specific act and authority. Getting this wrong means the judge dismisses the case without ever examining the merits, so it is the first thing we analyse — free of charge.
Yes. Refusals by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) in naturalisation or nationality certificate proceedings are challengeable acts of authority. The most common grounds are arbitrary assessment of the exams, incorrect counting of your qualifying residence, and refusals issued without stating legal grounds. If your case involves Mexican parents or grandparents, check our dual citizenship page first, because it is often resolved administratively without litigation.
Not for every scenario. Refusals, cancellations and migratory alerts can be litigated while you are abroad, using an electronic signature or a power of attorney granted before a Mexican consulate. Cases involving detention obviously require presence in the country, but there someone else can file on your behalf.
Yes. We handle your case and communicate over WhatsApp and email in English or Spanish. Court filings are in Spanish, as Mexican law requires, and we walk you through every ruling in English. Certified translations of your foreign documents are billed separately because an authorised court translator must produce them.
Free, no obligation, in English. If your case calls for an amparo we file it in 72 hours for MX$12,900. If a faster administrative route exists, we tell you that instead.
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