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This paper analyses how Mexico's foreign policy considerations have shaped the State's objectives and interests regarding the management of migratory flows, their causes and consequences, and how transformations in the dynamic of the US-Mexico bilateral relations since the 1980s have influenced changes in this policy area. I examine the foreign policy factors that historically determined the Mexican state's decision to limit its response to emigration control and to the consequences of US immigration policies, with particular emphasis on the evolution of Mexican migration policies from a 'non-policy' stance to a more active relationship with Mexican nationals in the US , particularly since 2000. I argue that these changes are not only a result of the growth of the Mexican migrant population and their increasing political and economic influence in Mexico and the US, but also a consequence of closer economic integration between the countries which gave way to a new interpretation of Mexico's relations with the US and a re-evaluation of the scope and limits of the principle of 'non-intervention' and the strategy of 'delinkage' in this issue-area. This analysis raises key questions regarding the factors that change the role of sending states' migration policies and the implications of their activity for the migrant community, the host state and the bilateral relationship in general.