Mexico image vs. reality: with Donald Trump pledging to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a look at why fewer Mexicans are leaving home in search of opportunity.

• Author: McCollum, Sean
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

In some ways, Oswaldo Valencia Rosado embodies the new Mexico. Twenty-five years ago, his grandfather ran a meat stall in the market of Campeche, a city on the Yucatan peninsula. Now Rosado, 27, is studying for a Ph.D. in computer programming in the central Mexican city of Puebla, with hopes of someday starting his own video game production company.

When Rosado graduated from high school, he thought about going to the United States, which generations of Mexicans have seen as the promised land, to continue his education. But his dad advised him to build a career in Mexico instead.

"That's a waste," his father said of going to the U.S. "Stay here!"

Rosado did stay, and he's not alone. Mexico's improving economy is giving more Mexicans opportunities at home, and fewer are heading to the U.S. illegally in search of jobs. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. dropped from 6.4 million in 2009 to 5.8 million in 2014, the latest year for which figures are available.

Even so, when many Americans think of Mexico, the first thing that comes to mind is illegal immigration. About half of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are Mexican, and the debate over how to deal with them is playing a big role in the 2016 presidential election. Republican candidate Donald Trump has made headlines for suggesting that undocumented immigrants from Mexico are criminals and promising, if elected, to build a huge wall to seal the entire 2,000-mile border--and to make Mexico pay for it. Hillary Clinton favors immigration reform that would provide those in the U.S. illegally with a path to citizenship.

The fact that Trump's campaign promise has resonated with many Americans is an indication of the frustration people feel with a broken immigration system, experts say. But they add that it's also based on a somewhat outdated vision of Mexico and its relationship with the U.S.

"Americans still have a picture of Mexico as a guy in a sombrero lying under a cactus, and Mexico hasn't been that for a long time," says Christopher Wilson, a Mexico expert at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. "The country has transformed dramatically over the last 30 years."

Mexico has made huge progress in pulling people out of poverty. Almost half of Mexico's 31 million households are now considered middle class. High-skill jobs are becoming more plentiful, factories are churning out sophisticated products, and more families are adopting lifestyles that would be familiar to American families, with cellphones, new cars, and nice homes.

From Making T-shirts to Building Airplanes

The country has also begun to emerge as an international player in exports and manufacturing. In addition to growing a lot of the food Americans eat, Mexico produces cars, parts for the U.S. auto industry, electronics, appliances, and clothes. And Mexico has become one of the world's largest exporters of computer services like IT support, along with countries like India, the Philippines, and China. Overall, it now ranks as the 12th-largest export economy, and it's expected to continue to grow.

"Mexico has gone from a place where you make T-shirts and jeans to a place where you make cars and airplanes," says Wilson. "That's a tremendous evolution of the economy."

Mexico's growing economic clout has big implications for its northern neighbor, the United States. Mexico is the third-largest trading partner of the U.S. (after Canada and China). Since the start in 1994 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)--which opened up trade between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada--Mexico's exports have soared, with more than 80 percent going to the U.S. As a result of NAFTA, $1.4 billion of trade is conducted back and forth between the two nations every day, according to Kimberly Breier, a Mexico expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Trump has called NAFTA "the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country." He says it caused the loss of millions of good-paying American...