In Mixtec, wh-words move to the specifier of CP, and wh-possessors move to the specifier of the possessive DP when they pied-pipe their possessum. Foci also move to the beginning of the clause, but they cannot front within a DP. However, both wh-words and foci can subextract out of possessive DPs, often argued to precede via successive cyclic movement through spec-DP (Gavruseva 2000). Thus, foci seemingly *can* and *cannot* move to the edge of DP depending on the derivation. Based on this contrast, I advance a novel account of syntactic focus movement in the language: movement targets a class of focus-sensitive particles (that can be overtly realized or segmentally null), not foci themselves (cf. Cable 2010 on wh-movement). Movement of phrases headed by these particles will also move any focus that they c-command. These particles can be attracted to spec-DP (like wh-words), but semantic foci cannot, as they bear no formal movement feature. Thus, there is no motivation for foci to front within a pied-piped constituent.