SAN JERÓNIMO COYULA, Mexico — This ragged town at the foot of the smoking Popocatépetl volcano is one of the communities in Mexico with deep ties to the United States. Since the 1980s, thousands of its residents have trekked to what they call El Norte, particularly to New York City and the Hamptons of Long Island. For decades, migrants have mixed the cement, laid the bricks and painted the walls of grand houses there.
Many families here depend on the remittances sent to them by relatives who have migrated north to buy medicine for the old and schoolbooks for the young. Family members in the United States use their earnings to help fund a free town festival every September.
Unsurprisingly, when I ask a dozen people from the plaza to the main street what they think of President Trump, they all have negative opinions. “Trump is a hypocrite — he employs Mexicans for his buildings and then he attacks us,” said Humberto Ramos, a stocky 40-year-old with cement stains on his overalls. “The Mexicans are the ones that work the hardest there. We have helped build the country.”
But while Mr. Trump’s language angers residents here, his first year in power did not affect them as much as they feared. Migrants still send home money. In fact, last year is estimated to be a record-breaker for remittances, with the Central Bank of Mexico estimating that Mexicans living in the United States sent home $26.1 billion between January and November alone. Not a single brick has been laid to build Mr. Trump’s promised “beautiful wall.” And total trade between the two countries continues to grow.
“There was a lot of fear and panic, but things haven’t really changed for most people,” said Eric González, a 35-year-old electrician carrying a backpack full of tools. Mr. González labored on Long Island for nine years, but came home in 2009 to start a business and look after his aging parents. He still has four brothers and a sister working in New York and sending money back.
“The attacks have been more psychological,” he said. “People see stories on the news and get scared. But you have to look at the big picture.”
This gap between rhetoric and reality reflects the deep-rooted relationship between the United States and Mexico and the confusing agenda of the Trump presidency. During his campaign, Mr. Trump promised to hit Mexico with a triple whammy: building a wall and making Mexico pay for it; deporting up to three million migrants; and rewriting or scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement. The combined effect could have thrown Mexico into deep recession as it dealt with millions of deportees and a diplomatic crisis with the world’s No. 1 military power.
A year into his presidency, this apocalyptic scenario has not come to pass. Mr. Trump continues to bait Mexico on Twitter. “The Wall will be paid for, directly or indirectly, or through longer term reimbursement, by Mexico,” he wrote on Jan. 18. But there is no plan to extract that money while he is struggling to get Congress to pay for the first cement.
Inside the United States, policies against immigrants are felt more acutely. The removal of protection for “Dreamers,” those who immigrated as children, has left hundreds of thousands in fear for their future. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been searching for undocumented immigrants on Greyhound buses and at 7-Eleven stores. Reports about of deportations breaking up families are featured regularly on television.
But the total number of deportations also paints a more nuanced picture. In fiscal year 2017, the United States sent home about 226,000 people — fewer than in any year under President Barack Obama. One likely explanation for the drop is that, under Mr. Trump, Border Patrol agents caught fewer people attempting to enter the country. Instead, immigration authorities focused on migrants already living in the United States, deporting 81,000 in 2017. This number represents more deportations from the interior of the country than in 2016 and 2015, but fewer than every other year of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
Of course, the consequences of Mr. Trump’s stance toward Mexico and migrants may still be to come. Negotiations over Nafta continue, and Mr. Trump continues to vow that he will pull out of the deal if he doesn’t get what he likes. Immigration authorities may conjure up new pretexts to send home people in greater numbers. The deportation of hundreds of thousands of young people who have grown up in the United States would be a humanitarian disaster.
But immigration patterns may also change independently of what Mr. Trump does. Mexican migration was decreasing even before Mr. Trump kicked off his campaign. The Pew Research Center estimated last April that the number of undocumented Mexicans living in the United States had dropped from 6.4 million in 2009 to 5.6 million in 2016.
Several factors, including changing demographics in Mexico, may have combined to cause this drop. The average number of children per family here has been decreasing sharply, which means there are fewer people in the work force and less pressure on parents to provide.
While the electrician, Mr. González, was one of eight siblings, he has only one child himself. He makes 250 pesos, or about $13, a day in Mexico, less than the $17 hourly wage he made painting houses on Long Island. But as we stare at the towering Popo volcano, he says he has no plans to return north. “I am my own boss here, I want to build my business,” he told me. “And this is a beautiful place to be.”
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