A significant number of Latin American citizens leave their country to look for opportunities abroad or receive financial support from family members who work outside their country. Most of these emigrants live in the United States. A growing literature explores the political implications of emigration and remittances for political behavior. Nevertheless, little is known about the impact of changes in the opportunity environment outside of one’s country on individuals’ demands vis-à-vis their government at home. Does losing access to foreign labor markets or monetary assistance coming from abroad shape citizens’ commitment to democracy, demands from the government, and willingness to hold domestic elites accountable for their actions? To answer these questions, we employ a two-step empirical strategy that combines a regression discontinuity design and an original survey experiment in Mexico. First, we leverage a natural experiment whereby the timing of the 2016 US presidential election coincided with the fieldwork for the AmericasBarometer (LAPOP) survey in several Latin American countries. We argue that Trump’s victory might have changed respondents’ perceptions about the feasibility of moving to the United States for work or relying on remittances from family members residing in the United States, which might have increased the salience of the quality of democracy in their home country. We then propose an original survey experiment that oversamples households living in municipalities with the highest levels of emigration to the United States. Our research highlights the potential implications of external political shocks for democratic attitudes in emerging economies.