Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers
Last year the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: More people moved out than moved in. The Trump administration has hailed the exodus—negative net migration—as the fulfillment of its promise to ramp up deportations and restrict new visas. Beneath the stormy optics of that immigration crackdown, however, lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe.
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At least you can be certain the Americans who are disgusted enough with their country to make the non-trivial effort of uprooting themselves are good folks, and they'll be a net positive for whichever new society they choose to become part of.
True. Side effect is probably that the usa sinks faster with each good person leaving. Still it's hard to blame them for leaving.
I'm doing my part!
How else do we get to Idiocracy faster?
They get what they voted for.
I'm so sick of reading this type of comment. Trump got 49.8% of the vote. That means Harris and 3rd party voters combined were a majority of voters. And so many people are disenfranchised here for BS reasons that I'm sure Trump would have lost if all the people who wanted to vote were able to.
I understand why foreigners would have a lot of hate for America, but please try to focus that hate on our elites, who set the rules for our sham democracy, propagandize the shit out of us via ownership of most of our media, and are responsible for our Imperialist crimes.
The average American gets virtually no say in what our government does to us or to the rest of the world.
That in itself is an harrowing statistic.
"If you count third party candidates who have absolutely no hope of winning, it turns out that Trump didn't win the popular vote in 2024. Sure, more people voted for him than voted for the perfectly normal democratic candidate, but if you add her votes to the votes for the Green party candidate, the Libertarian Party candidate, the Socialism and Liberation party candidate, and RFK Jr. Combined, they all got very slightly more votes than Trump. So, America isn't cooked."
No, it's only very slightly almost cooked. Nice.
I guess murican politics are fucked up (no news there), otherwise maybe the barely majority could've banded up and formed a government. Happened in Portugal a while back when the right was elected but had a minority, so the left got together and formed government instead.
There are no institutional mechanisms in American politics to make that happen. We don't have a parliamentary system. (I wish we did).
This pretends that Harris wasn't a ghoul as well. See Gaza, immigration, militarism, etc.
America is a one party state, and in their typical extravagance, has two of them.
"Math is hard", eh? 🤌🏼
Agreed
Not to mention that these "elites" don't respect borders, so properly identifying them as the issue and fixing it so they lose power/influence in your country, could have cascade effects, even in the originating country.
Because if you think America is isolated in our shitty politics, every other citizen from other countries are going to have a rude awakening when the technocrats/oligarchs have ruined or grow bored of the US and move on to ruin your country (see Venezuela, Palestine, or any country that signed a free trade agreement with us that are now getting hit with tariffs).
Their class solidarity is international, and so must ours be.
"The Epstein Class"
63% of US population voted. Less than half of that group voted for Harris. That means at least 68.5% (but really more) either did not vote for Harris to mitigate the risk of Trump or actively choose to vote for him.
Fuck them all. 31.5% of the population is worth a shit. And even then some of them are anti-socialist libs.... so I don't even like all of them either.
Also Georgia found evidence that musk rigged it.
68% of registered voters voted for Trump.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1k1dvv3/oc_us_presidential_election_results_as_percentage/
I assume you're counting the non votes as votes for Trump. Disingenuous at best.
Unless we're criticizing third party voters, of course.
It's absolutely not disingenuous. It's what happened.
Yep, since that's what they were.
Real quick. Quantify for me (since you seem to have a link for everything) how many of those people who didn't vote but were eligible lived in places where their district was gerrymandered to hell? Or where they live the state had engineered it to be impossible to vote (limiting voting locations (making sure the lines would be astronomical and the weather would do the work for them), preventing people from bussing people to voting offices. Limiting or completely removing the ability to vote by mail. I'll wait.
🦗🦗🦗🎶
Stick to nursery rhymes, kiddo.
Well...yes and no. If I recall well, little over 60% voted. Slightly more than half for trump. So a bit over 30% of the american voters voted for this shit. Those 40% that not voted.... They could have made a difference but did not bother
I have
a friend... A person I know, who is dating a good friend of mine. He's from California originally. He convinced my friend to not vote because Kamala had "bad policies" when she was an AG. Blah blah pot. Blah blah guns.. blah blah excuse.Now he's vocal about Trump's policies, blah blah guns. Blah blah free speech, blah blah ICE.
I'm like mofo do you even hear yourself? She wasn't perfect. She made mistakes... But nope couldn't vote for the woman.
Shits infuriating.
It's perfectly legitimate to vote third party in a non-swing state to express your disgust with the state of The Democrats. However, doing that in a swing state is basically just punching yourself in the face.
In no case should you choose not to vote because that registers as apathy rather than disgust with the choices.
So they both voted for Trump. There's no debate. That's what happened.
A lot of people wanted to vote but couldn’t because they were purged off of voter rolls.
Slightly less than half
Nope. Less than half voted for Trump. He didn't even have a majority of people who cast a vote for president. And a third of the country isn't eligible to vote due to age.
So just under 20% of Americans voted for him.
The 40% that didn't vote would probably have also broke 50/50 for Trump vs. Harris if they'd bothered to vote. But, most of them probably live in states like Massachusetts or Wyoming where one party's lead is so huge that their vote really wouldn't have had any effect.
Stop deflecting and trying to blame non-voters when the real problem is the people who voted for Trump.
Every abstained vote is a vote for trump, so 68% of the country voted for Trump.
Asinine reasoning. If Harris had won, they'd all have been a vote for her.
No, if literal Hitler is running in the election and you don't vote, the vote counts for Hitler.
Trust me when I say I have wrestled with this for a long time now, having to live among people who either voted for the fascists or didn't vote at all. There are a few key factors in the US that just don't make it that simple:
But they didn't, and she didn't, so they weren't.
If you go from abstaining to voting for Trump, then you've voted twice!
They voted as a country. The country as an entity wanted Trump and it got him.
Only the losers in any election starts itemizing. I get it: Trump is about as legit as Hitler in terms of absolute percentage of people who voted for him vs. the entire pool of potential electors.
But that's not how it works: he won as per the rules of the elections, and now he's become the country's choice and its problem.
Fitting username.
To add: we've been voting on how our elections work since 2000. The problem was obvious then and we kept excusing candidates who support FPTP.
Interesting, one could also make this point for immigrants in/coming to America. Just wish more of us realized that before voting in 2024…even better in 2016.
Yeah, there are lots of really awesome Americans out there.
Unfortunately there are some incredibly shitty ones who have managed to get control of everything.
There are also a lot of otherwise decent Americans who are propagandized beyond all reason. The machinery for manufacturing consent in this country is sophisticated and very well funded.
That's a very naive point of view. It's incredibly difficult to move countries and takes either a stable overseas job or lots of money.
Not necessarily. There are Americans moving to Mexico and causing problems there.
Gentrification in Mexico City is a huge problem
Digital nomads in Mexico City
https://youtu.be/km4QYxOlJgM
That's actually a quite condescending thing to say. And also not a surprise at all.
US citizen who just finished immigrating to Japan 2 days ago. It took 8 months of planning and prep work, at least $50,000, and brought my wife and I to the edges of our sanity for the vast majority of those 8 months.
But we are finally free. Fuck ICE, fuck MAGA, and fuck Trump.
Now you've moved to Japan, with its rising far right politics
Still better than living in a country with an active fascist government.
I mean, at least Japan's fascist government would likely be a functioning one.
Japan's just lagging behind, they recently elected a reaganite/thatcherite to implement austerity policies. Fascism will soon follow, and they're no stranger to it.
Give Japan time.
This is a fair point, and one that I’m concerned about. But our only 2 choices were America and Japan, so we’re taking our chances with Japan for now.
Eh, that's mostly sensationalization by Western media.
According to my Japanese friends, the new government is quite moderate and their stances on a lot of issues are a lot more nuanced than the headlines imply.
She just supports "traditional gender roles", is against same sex marriage, etc. y'know the usual bigot red flags
tbf those are just standard asian people beliefs. yes many of them are bigots. but also yes that the far right has always been relatively popular in japan and last decade or so has become more and more powerful with abe et al
She has refused to acknowledge Japan's war crimes during WW2 and wrote the preface for a book promoting Hitler's election strategy.
Anti LGBTQ sentiment is undoubtedly not uncommon around the world. I live in the West and it was not even 15 years ago that insinuating homosexuality was a way men insulted each other and there are many that still do. If anything it's gradually getting worse here, with more and more countries electing far right governments. We are a long way from acceptance.
But Takaichi is more than your everyday mild bigot.
Wow! Incredible, well done
Thank you <3
Congrats. Was reading about the apartment application process for foreigners (giving them gift money for considering your application is a thing?) - that's daunting. Did you go for a large city or somewhere a bit off the main track?
Thank you. We’re on the outer edges of a major city, close to my wife’s family. Yeah, unfortunately this country has never been terribly welcoming to foreigners. I certainly wouldn’t want to live here long term if I wasn’t married to a citizen. I did it for 5 years in my 20s and got burned out.
50k? Trips and ____?
Airplane tickets - $8k, Sending 2 boxes of things air freight (we lost 2 boxes doing sea freight to the US a few years back, so not trying that again) - $2.5k, Vet visits + vaccinations for dog to be allowed in Japan - $1.5k, Repairs on house to list it for sale - $11k, Short term apartment rental while house is on market - $12.5k, Giving away all our stuff because there’s not enough time to list everything for sale online and spend 1-2 hours per listing dealing with people trying to haggle… and then re-buying the essentials in Japan - $20k+ (honestly idek, could be much more. Haven’t sat down and added up how much value we gave away)
This doesn’t include the $50k we dropped our house sale price to make it sell faster, or the $100k+ per year less I’ll be making at work here.
So yeah, clearly our priority here was not maximizing our net worth. We’re significantly downsizing our lifestyle financially, and prioritizing our family’s safety and peace of mind instead. It was not an easy decision to make.
If we could leave, we would leave.
Definitely out of reach for most. So many are paycheck to paycheck as it is
I wonder if just like Brits and French, Unitedstaters emigrating elsewhere will call themselves "expats" instead of immigrants.
We, white people of the west, can go anywhere in the world for work, affordability and/or safety without considering ourselves immigrants.
Many years ago I was chatting with someone from Malmö. He was complaining how immigrants were "taking over his city". But when I mentioned that I, a Canadian, would also like to move to Sweden, he told me it would be fine, that he would not consider me "an immigrant" because I'm from the west.
Anyway, I understand why anyone would want to leave. It's just that it seems the vocabulary used is different for different people.
I’m an American immigrant in Germany. It’s infuriating how many Germans complain to me about immigrants, then when hearing that I’m an immigrant, wave their hand and say I’m not like the others. I’m now a German teacher and married to a German, so they’ve always got plausible deniability that it’s about language or integration, but I wasn’t always good at German and I only met my husband after a few years here. It used to be much more fun to push back on why.
Try immigrating to Canada from the US. Nobody here would ever consider me a 'true' immigrant, even though that is quite literally what I am.
I moved for school and never came back. All my family and personal ties were left behind in the states. Except for my family and the annoying need to file taxes every year for some fucking reason, I have no ties left to the US.
But Im white and culturally similar enough that the label 'immigrant' would feel funny to people here. It really is wacky.
Why pay taxes to the US? Is it an extraditable offense?
You have to file taxes with the US, most people with US citizenship living outside the US don't actually have to pay anything.
As for why to keep filing:
Let's say you have no plans to ever live in the US again. Does that mean you never want to visit friends or family you left behind? Does that mean you'll never go to a sporting event, concert or professional conference in the US ever again? If you're flying internationally, will you always be willing to pay extra and do extra work to avoid being on a plane that makes a stopover in the US?
For most people it's a few hours of work, and/or a hundred bucks or so once per year to keep their options open and avoid major headaches.
Thanks for the well laid out response. I learned a lot, and my assumption on renouncing citizenship were along the same lines as:
Yeah, it's more: "Oh, you want to renounce? Guess we better audit your last 5 years of tax returns with a fine-toothed comb." In addition, you have to do two separate interviews with US officials, plus pay a $2.5k USD fee. Plus, you might be hit with an exit tax if you have any wealth -- and that includes retirees who are counting on using that wealth for their retirement.
Most civilized countries' airports have transit areas for just this purpose, you don't tecnically enter the country.
Oh, we're talking about Murica, nevermind.
If you're flying internationally, will you always be willing to pay extra and do extra work to avoid being on a plane that makes a stopover in the US?
Yes. All the yes. Sod all legal rights when in an airport. Not worth the risk.
Daaamn. You moved to a foreign country and became a teacher of their language in said country? Jesus that’s an almost pornographic level of integration. Almost like a flex.
I was German club president in high school and I could not even fathom doing this. Kudos.
I mean, to be fair, it’s not German literature, I’m teaching German as a second language. I’m a big proponent of dual native/nonnative language teaching, because native speakers (almost) always know what’s right and nonnative speakers (almost) always know why. I think of it like having a math teacher who’s a prodigy vs one who struggled with math- both are useful to have for different reasons.
My German’s not perfect, but it’s very good (C2) and it’s good enough to teach new speakers, I just let them know that I also make mistakes.
It's rather simple, they see you as sharing their same culture, so they consider you part of their tribe, while others appear to them as being too different, implying cultural friction and danger.
You aren't a Turk?
I've lived in 7 countries - and still living in a foreign country now - and I've heard the same thing from many locals in all the countries I've lived in.
It's not because you're from the West that you'd be an acceptable immigrant, it's because you're white. From the way you're telling the same story I've heard a million times myself, I'm 99% certain you're as white as I am.
Yep. When I visit my girlfriend's family in Peru, I get looks because I'm mixed Caucasian (white skin but some asian features) and definitely not Latino. When I stayed in Germany, or visited Austria or Switzerland, I did not get the same looks or attitudes. I've been around, and I've found a lot of people's initial attitudes towards you depends on how similar or different you are to them at face-value.
It's because you're rich.
If you're poor then you're a filthy immigrant.
We just left the US at the beginning of the year, and so we've been thinking about this sort of thing a lot. The short answer is, before we thought about it, we were referring to ourselves as "expats." But just last week I saw someone online mention that, as a rule, people moving from rich countries are called "expats" while people moving to rich countries are called "immigrants."
That one did my head in a bit. Had to rethink some stuff.
They already do that in Mexico, they call themselves expats in their Facebook groups and complain about the locals
An expat is not an immigrant. An immigrant emigrates to a different country, like my mother who was born in Venezuela but earned her citizenship in the USA. An expat is somebody who moves to another country for work temporarily, and does NOT emigrate. Think of immigration as permanent and expat as temporary (think work visa for a few years then back home, or transfered somewhere else)
Oh a migrant gotcha
Actually i think it's the other way around, an expatriate is expected to renounce native citizenship and may have left for exile.
It might be assumed that it is easier for people within Western countries to assimilate in another Western country? It's often not actually true, I imagine, and probably really comes down to the individual.
No, it's racism. Always has been.
Your associate is racist. You should tell them.
It depends on who.
For immigrants changing their mind, they are either going to approach it as moving back to their old country or being an immigrant in the new country.
For most native born Americans who I know who did or will, they will also likely self identify as immigrants.
It will be the elderly moving to Latin America to retire who will likely refer to themselves as "expats".
I moved to Germany from the US and make a point of calling myself an immigrant to tackle this very thing. Honestly I haven't heard expat used by anyone besides contractors looking to go back home after the duration, but that's anectodal.
Colonial legacy. One has to remember Europeans spent the 1800s and much of the early 1900s dabbling in "were civilized, they're not" brainrot ie. phrenology, race "science", eugenics, forced sterilization and most Western education essentially ignores the cultural legacy of white supremacy. Some Western countries (including the US) continued race based apartheid into the mid to late 1900s. It's why Western countries can never seem to completely shake Nazism. To a degree it's imbued into their very foundations.
I grew up in the USA and live in Australia. I think of and refer to myself as both 'expat' and 'immigrant'.
Which word I use depends on context. I'm an American expat (context: my relationship with USA), but I'm an immigrant in Australia (context: my relationship with Australia).
I guess I'm really just using "expat" to mean "emigrant". ¯_(ツ)_/¯
They do, all the time.
Leaving the US is too expensive for most of us to even consider.
Lol wut.
it costs thousands and thousands of dollars to leave the country. meanwhile, many Americans couldn't afford a 400$ surprise bill. I don't blame people for leaving but the costs are usually upwards of 25k/person.
It does not cost thousands. It does cost a few hundred dollars.
Leaving usually requires downsizing to fit all your possessions inside a 70L pack. Most US Americans will have enough shit to pawn to afford that.
well that's a fucking lie.
canada required 30k in savings and is the most accessible for most Americans.
go fuck yourself for talking shit about things you don't know about honestly.
Now do going South.
It's not a lie, it's what I literally did. And many others did too.
ah yes, that should work fine for everyone. I'm certain it's totally safe for trans people.
oh wait
oh no
don't assume everyone has the same situation as you
Don't assume every country in South America is Brazil or Mexico.
Trans people and poc face discrimination in pretty much every country in the world, Canada included. And also pretty much every country has at least once city where folks are more progressive than not.
I assure you that there are many places here in South America that are safer for you than the US right now.
Edit: if your trans you might have more options, being able to claim asylum. There is well documented evidence of state violence against queer folks in the US. See Canadian and HRC travel warnings.
How did you solve long term visa?
I went to the embassy and applied for a long term visa..
Legally emigrating to a new country takes a lot of effort, but even doing it illegally (by buying a ticket and overstaying your tourist visa) would take at least a few thousand dollars, for the flight plus expenses for a few months while you find some income
Any then then after the next election you get deported to nigeria for being an illegal immigrant
The idea is to leave the USA, not immigrate there
There are loads of countries in South America where you can get a visa in a few months.
It cost me a couple hundred dollars. I didn't even speak Spanish (at the time; I learned the language after I came), and I didn't need to hire an immigration lawyer. People who pay thousands do it because they want a lawyer to do all the work for them.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/proof-funds.html
https://ircc.canada.ca/english/information/fees/fees.asp#economic
Here are two sources directly from the Canadian government that show you are demonstrably wrong.
There are more fees and costs than this. But these are two examples.
It does cost thousands. Don't minimize the difficulty of immigration. It's not easy for anyone.
You're going north. Now do south.
I'm not wrong. I did it during his first term.
You are right that going to a country with lower quality of life will be cheaper. I was focused on Canada as it was the one being most talked about and an equivalent country for quality of life. You were speaking more broadly that any country is an option and under that premise, you're right, it doesn't cost 30k.
https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp
For all the bad shit going down, many people's day to day isn't impacted enough that moving to a country with a lower quality of life is the go to option.
Emmigrating ≠ being a digital nomad
There are literally countries with visas that are named "digital nomad visa" with a path to residency and then citizenship.
So, yeah, it sometimes is.
Citation needed
Citation is me, writing to you from South America.
I'm not going to dox myself, but I can assure you that there's a lot of refugees from the US who have been coming for years.
Every country is different and the visa rules here in my country have changed several times since I came. But I recommend googling it. There are affordable options for you.
Anecdote makes poor evidence, but let's roll.
Ok, we pick a South American country that's dirt cheap and scrounge the cash to get there. And let's say to hell with visas and assorted fees as a factor because a guy on the Internet told me that he did it almost a decade ago and it was totally cheap bro.
What language do they speak there? I'm not so arrogant as to assume Spanish, so I'm gonna need to learn that. I'll have to rehome my cats cause I'll bet getting them there with us isn't likely. Quit my job, though that was always going to happen. Find a new job and hope that refugees can get and engineering job over a citizen because I've got fuck all in other skills and while not the fattest American around, my cardio game is weak and manual labor would be a transition. How's the healthcare? Probably better than the US to be fair, but do they have my spouse's medications, one of which will cause seizures if discontinued suddenly.
All that in addition to whatever it costs now. Please continue to tell me how easy it is.
The healthcare here is better than the US. Drugs are plentiful, easier to get, and cheaper.
Pets are hard. Moving a family is expensive. Moving yourself is a few hundred dollars. Get the visa in the US before you leave. It takes a few months. First start by getting your fingerprints and your FBI report. Those took the longest, and every country is going to want that.
I recommend working online. Jobs here don't pay.
I mean I would if my support system didn’t have serious roots here.
If I was single you bet I would.
But being married with children it’s a lot harder to do that.
I totally get that, but we are married with a child and living very far away from any traditional support system (in a different country than either of our families). It's certainly tough, especially missing out on the free child care that everyone around us seems to be enjoying, but honestly it's not that bad, and even has some of its own benefits.
I agree. I'm in the same boat. I would make the point though that if you emigrate somewhere else, you're going to have to leave behind a lot of comfort. That includes your support systems. Without wads of cash you will have to endure living in conditions you don't want to. You will have to struggle more than you think is reasonable.
We are just not uncomfortable enough yet to take that leap.
I actually left the US because I have kids - I didn't want them growing up there, or with the trouble we saw coming years ago.
If I could realistically leave, I would. I suspect this is true or lotssss of people here who can't just pick up and go
I'm about 2 lifetimes worth of labor short of having the money to leave.
They're fleeing
Wish I could leave. This is going to get bad ...
Ive lived in this country for my entire life (33 now) but I'm considering it as well. I'm a black American so it's not like I'm exactly welcomed in most places but I have to try at this point...
Rich muricans are leaving the US, most can barely leave the state.
Why would the rich leave? Don't they benefit from Trumps policies like tax breaks and stuff? Or do you just mean the moderately 'normal' rich people with 'only' 6-figure incomes?
Because they can afford to escape the bedlam. Nobody wants to be in Minneapolis right now. Nevermind LA, Portland, or Charlotte.
If you've got enough money to put up in a hotel for a month or friendly relatives in another state to crash with, it sounds far preferable to dealing with ICE agents clogging your streets and ramming your car. Doubly so if you're living in the US on a temporary or revocable permit. Who is holding a Student Visa or Green Card that feels safe in any of these cities right now? They're snatching neuroscience students out of Columbia University student dorms, ffs.
The super-rich are right at home, yeah.
single digit change in migration patterns
It's pure hysterical clickbait. The far more newsworthy headline would be about people declining to immigrate to the US, as the Feds add more and more foreign nations to its shit list. Very obvious that Trump (by way of Steven Miller) wants the US to be Whites Only.
But they idea that people are leaving in droves requires you to believe that's a viable option for anyone.
Yeah, this isn’t cheap at all. It’s either a huge chunk of money up front or you have to uproot and move your family only taking what you can afford to the next country, a huge upheaval, with probably no support network at all where you move to. Ans that’s just residency, you’re not a citizen until you've put in years and meet whatever citizenship requirements.
A recent bill in Canada restored Canadian citizenship to thousands of people living abroad. I'm helping my friend move to Canada and giving her a place to live after she claims her citizenship. After she stays here three years, all her children get the same opportunity to claim citizenship. Am I operating an Underground Railroad?!
I feel people tend to forget that Canada almost voted in a Trump clone.
Ontario is governed by a Trump clone, as is Alberta.
Like, things can be bad in different ways. It's not meaningful to describe every corrupt politician as a Trump clone, Trump didn't invent sucking, and his form of suck is pretty unique.
Oh, we've commonly elected people just as evil as Trump. So have the Americans. Just not as stupid. Meanwhile, we threw away our pretense of "rule of law" at the Toronto G20 in 2010 just so Harper could impress China, and no following government ever did a damn thing about it.
But if you're talking about the last election, it was not even close, there was no "almost" about it.
Doug Ford is far dumber than Trump.
I don't think he's low-IQ-dumb at all. I think he's the shrewdest and most effective political manipulator Ontario has seen in my entire politically aware life. I think he has certain pathological drives and values that cause him to do things that any decent and informed person would find entirely contrary to the public good, but I don't think he does any of them because he doesn't know better.
Is that a "fuck trumpism with blood as the lube" "no almost" or an "all aboard the fascism-train" "no almost"? (I'm still ignorant on CN politics)
There was no Trump-like candidate that had a chance in hell in the last Federal election. It was a historic loss for the conservatives.
Trump saying that he was going to take Canada over probably did Canada a favor. It's hard to say the US is going in the right direction. with a far right, autocrat in power. Your conservatives can't emulate that then.
On the other hand, a Prime Minister with majority confidence has essentially unchecked power and can author and then pass any legislation she wants. The Canadian Prime Minister's office is far more powerful than the American President's office and we are perfectly able to dip in and out of tyranny as fashion dictates.
You got to have a way to do it though. You either have to have a job already lined up or you have to be under 30 so you could work some crappy job for 2 years or you have to be independently wealthy. The average Joe working at the Ford factory isn't going to be going anywhere anytime soon.
That isn't the average Joe though, not by a long shot.
The average is the average Joan working as a cashier.
I would go if anyone wanted me, but I'm not rich enough or smart enough, so I'll have to take my chances with the MAGAs. Looks like being a Revolutionary is in my future.
That's most humans, just strive to learn the local language and culture and you'll be fine.
You make it sound easy, but most countries are going to refuse American political refugees unless they have something substantial to contribute. Why should they allow all these refugees to overwhelm their health care system, housing, etc.?
We're kicking people out of America for those same reasons, why would we think it will be any different for us in other countries?
I'm not sure they qualify yet?... Maybe, but calling them refugees... weird timeline.
Anyway a few countries have digital nomad visas, so there's that.
What else would you call people who are escaping an abusive government to avoid impending danger?
Americans have this deep-seated pride that leads them to believe that "it could never happen here," but I have news for us all, it's already happening, it getting worse every day, and it's going to get far worse than our worst imaginations, if we don't do something serious to stop it.
I have a degree in history, I know EXACTLY where we are headed, and just being American is not going to protect or save us.
I don't have a degree in history, I know EXACTLY where you are headed.
I get it, it seems pretty obvious, but MAGA has spent years convincing many people that only good can happen, and a lot of them still buy it.
If things don't improve, I don't see any other option. I don't think a lot of Americans realize just how bad things are likely to get if there isn't a pretty big change, very soon.
I hate it here and have tried to emigrate to Canada unsuccessfully. They changed their laws to be racist to Indian immigrants but they've basically just fucked up their ability to gain skilled workers.
You need to be rich and privileged to escape by normal means. The regime is making it harder every day. My deepest, most sincere hope is for the complete destruction of the USA federal government. They've ruined my life.
"Rich and privileged" is an overstatement. It is easier and cheaper to study in a good EU university than a US one, even for US citizens. Prospective students save money, and can stay after graduating.
For those for whom a study visa isn't an option it is indeed somewhat more difficult, but as long as you have some skill that is in demand, it's still far less difficult than Americans would imagine.
I remember hearing something like it's difficult to impossible for foreign doctors to get jobs in Canada. Is that why? The plan is to keep out or at least oppress Indians?
Because Canada does not need more skilled workers. 1.35M indians live in Canada.
Look at a map and think about climate change for five minutes.
Countries like New Zealand are absolutely falling over themselves to bring in trades and medical professionals. I nearly replanted myself there.
I advise anyone thinking about it to do your research on why that is. Sure if your only other option is the US, but the tourism ads are not the same as living in NZ. Record numbers of kiwis are leaving there too.
I have an ex co-worker that moved there a few years ago. I did a few on and off months of research. It's isolated. You're not getting concerts or going to amusement parks. Housing is expensive. Pay is marginal when you put it up against housing. Kids go through school and move to Australia or further for more opportunities. There's a windy season that's pretty insane if you're on the windward side. The ozone hole affects them, summers can be brutal even when it's not all that hot. Population is not diverse. It's markedly low stress. English speaking, schools are good, people are generally friendly. Lots of walking to places, food is seasonal, cheap and good quality. There are lots of good views and nature spaces.
I'm living in NZ temporarily (a few years) with wife and kids, and I would agree on most parts. Housing, energy/petrol, and groceries can get expensive especially when things are out of season. Medical staff pay is low and it can be the same sucky job sometimes, but it's in a beautiful country with a better work/life balance. We've found it's quite family friendly with parks, playgrounds and walking tracks - and we don't get dirty looks if bringing kids to a nicer restaurant. Also it's easy to do a day trip to some beach or go for a walk.
We live in an Auckland suburb, but the city has some cool venues that bring in NZ and international bands. As a metal guy, I feel likes there's always something to go to.
Does this number reflect only people who left by choice, or does it also include those who have been deported? The composition of this group would be interesting to see.
Trump has deported fewer people than Biden (I think? Definitely fewer than Obama) so, even if it did include people being deported, it still wouldn't change the takeaway as far as I can see: Americans are willingly getting the fuck out in record numbers.
Unless you're focusing on the "all the way back to the Great Depression" part more than recent history.
Also mandatory "fuck Donald Trump" disclaimer, my point isn't that he's better than Biden or Obama. If anything my point is that they're all the same where it counts.
I don't think we know those numbers, and may never know. He's disappearing people to other countries without tracking them. Why do you think this is true?
Trump hides the numbers because they're short of his stated goal of 1 million deportations per year or whatever. Part of the reason he's deporting fewer people, despite plainly more aggressive / unhinged tactics, is because fewer people are coming into the US because both of them made it more of a shithole. Why do you think he wouldn't put his name on something "huge" and "bigger than Biden" if he could?
My husband and I are moving to Mérida, Yucatán, México in April. We don't feel safe in Los Angeles anymore. And despite all the stuff going on in Mexico, Mérida is one of the safest cities in all the Americas.
I'm in the PV area. Trust me "all the stuff going on in Mexico" was a brief temper tantrum that lasted a few hours and some cars were burned after the head guy was taken out. Despite what English media wants to tell you, Mexico is safer today than it was before the events of Sunday.
Thanks for sharing, and that's good to hear. My husband was saying stuff was being blown out of proportion on US news outlets, too.
Beautiful place to nice to tbh, what would be your monthly total expenses be moving to Mexico vs America?
I think comparing those relatively their respective median wages makes the more sense
beyond that, mksg monthly expenses I see don't ammortize the costs of buying stuff like phones and other consuemer eletronics and/or appliances which are unfortanely a necessity that one day will to be replaced
You don't need to buy new phones or computers as long as they're GSM phones. You might need new power supplies, or more probably just a plug adapter. You will need to replace any appliances that run on AC if the frequency is different (50 vs 60 cycles/sec). But major appliances are generally already in an apartment or house (depending on the custom in the country you're moving to), which leaves things like toasters and microwaves which aren't exorbitantly expensive.
Incidentally, mobile phone service fees are much lower than in the UK. In England, I pay the equivalent of USD $11/mo for unlimited texts and voice calls and 5 GB of mobile data. Coverage and call quality are better too. ISP charges are also lower and connection speeds are good, as long as you avoid the big providers, which are evil and have poor quality of service.
When doing international moves, which I've done several times in my life, a good starting principle is YAGNI: Ya Ain't Gonna Need It. Bring irreplaceable personal items, clothes, maybe kitchenware. Big furniture, cars, etc: forget about those. Our first move filled up a container. Subsequent moves were increasingly small palletized LCL (less-than-container-load) in size.
The big hurdles aren't moving stuff around. They're getting residency, setting up bank accounts and finding decent work. I initially took a slightly less senior position, but quickly climbed the ladder to where I was before. This, despite being quite old for my line of work. In previous international moves, I worked for multinationals which handled immigration matters and moving, though it was up to me to get residency once I was there long enough.
Why should I leave? They're the ones who suck
Same reason conservatives don't want conservative women.
They don't want something that fits their interests and opinions.
They want to beat and conquer something that thinks differently from them, and mold them into something that is subservient to their interest and opinions.
there's at least 200 other countries that are at least as shitty as christo-fascists wish this one were. WHY CANT THEY MOVE.
Because those countries don't have football and Hooters.
I think you're being extremely generous to America here. Not to mention there's not 200 other countries in the world.
If I could afford to move to Spain, I would. I've come to detest the US.
Americans are immigrating to other countries, they just like to call themselves X-Pats® because they think immigrant is a dirty word
Many said people are moving to avoid this type of narrow minded perspective from others in the US.... Educated folks know anti-immigration is a tactic of emotional control by the ruling class.
I'm going to be a pedant and say they are emigrating to other countries.
E.g. Fewer people are immigrating to the US as it speed runs fascism. Many Americans, however, are emigrating to other countries.
Emigrate is to leave ones country to live in another, immigrate is to come to a country to live.
Yes that exactly how those 2 words work, they are emigrating from the USA and immigrating to other countries, but they will get offended by that
And yapping on twitter complaining about the locals and missing their life back home. #TakeMeBack
No, no! They are "replanting themselves and their families".
If ı would get a job offer with 100k$ ,I would still not consider on USA
100k isn't that much money over here.
what is the minimum threshold ?
Probably 250k per year for a lower middle class lifestyle
100k USD is barely anything in a big city.
what is the minimum threshold ? assume florida
Michael Green, a really big Wallstreet portfolio manager, says that 140,000 might be the new poverty line. So, that might be a pretty good guess?
Thanks to Elon, Bill, Mark like bastard oligarchs.
And much of it is from university and stem. Whats funny is he is louding less border crossings but less border crossings is another indicator of a bad us economy.
students, post docs, and top of stem. so kinda top and bottom.
I think my plan B if I get laid off is to cash out everything and flee. Not too sure where, but I don't have a lot of hope with the current administration or job market.
Personne peut me messager avec un boulot français au sud de la France (ou Paris). Je voudrais y évader toute suite. Chuis biologiste, et chevalier professionnellement.
Man how you guys leaving? I’d love to leave
Many Americans are, ironically, moving to Mexico.
And often (but of course not always) bringing gentrification and white supremacy bullshit with them.
You must be kidding.
American “Digital Nomads” Swarm Mexico City, Angering Locals | The Daily Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4QYxOlJgM
emigrated to Spain in 23, took a remote job and was able to finangle a visa through their DNV
No borders but damn, you have to support your local antifa if you have left your fellows alone
Where would I go if I migrated away? Most of the world is falling into authoritarianism as the child protection laws and the attempts to effectively ban OpenPGP encryption have proven. Not only that, most of us Americans only know English and a bit of Spanish (if even that).
So, even if I moved away and abandoned my friends and family to face the fascist wolves without me, then I'd only be delaying the inevitable. I'd only encourage you to move away if you're trans, but otherwise we must hold the line here no matter how tempting it is to move away from it.
Most of the world? No. You just need to do more research. But yes, moving abroad is hard and offersno guarantees.
"Most of the world" was a little hyperbolic admittedly
Not really.
I personally know two people that have left so I’m not surprised.
I mean, yeah?
It might help home prices a bit. I mean, there's not much we can hope for in this world anymore but affordable housing would be cool.
Not if private equity keeps buying up the houses 🥲
We could disincentivise that if we actually had any sway on policy.
The price of land in Sweden increased 10x the last 3 months. Now i see who is buying. This is clearly the time to feel lucky being in Europe.
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Cuba seems good. Bring a hundred solar panels with you.
Keep half for yourself and give the rest to your neighbors.
Dislikes immigrants, and now emigrating. Lol
That's why they call themselves "expats"
Rich + White = "Expat"
Otherwise you're an immigrant
What if I told you the ones leaving aren't the ones that dislike immigrants?
Neeeeeeooooooo, the matrix is more than one homogenous group Neo!
All according to plan. trump's buddy elon will be bringing in south africans to replace them. God bless the usa breaking apart. Hide!
I would prefer Americans stay in their shitty country and fix it themselves.
Yeah just like those other refugees fleeing repressive regimes across Eastern Europe and the southern hemisphere! Go back and fix the problems yourselves with your zero money or political power and total surveillance states.
/s in case it's not blindingly obvious.
No, no — you misspelled 'America bad'.
Now, repeat after me: America bad. See, it's not that hard!
The one's leaving are generally mostly the group of people who have been trying to fix it.
I don't think they owe anyone shit.
The ones leaving tend to be the professional class with the excess income and transferable job skills, typically with family abroad who can take them in once they depart.
The ones left behind tend to be the young and unemployed, the pensioners, and the minority-majority working class who can't afford the bureaucratic cost of updating their citizenship.
Flies in the face of Contractualism as a theory of civilization. I hope you're not a big fan of Rawls, Locke, Proudhorn, or Kant.
At some point, we each have a moral debt to one another that is within our capacity to fulfill. I might argue that people who feel the urge to expatriate are driven by their belief that they can no longer productively benefit their communities.
Are we telling someone "you have an obligation to feed your children"? Sure. Reasonable. But what if they've been banned from entering the grocery store?
I don't think anyone is obligated to martyr themselves in the face of a murderous paramilitary. Certainly not when both major parties appear happy to extend this American Gestapo a blank check for materials and manpower. But, at some point, we gotta fight them over here if we don't want to fight them over there.
Fascism doesn't end at America's borders, as anyone in Cuba or Venezuela or Iran or Gaza can tell you.
Which are also usually people who voted for Harris.
I think there was once a time I could have been in favor of this as at least an opt-in as it would benefit everyone to work collectively. Before Trump won a second time.
But now I'm seeing that the average US person is either aggressively anti-intellectual or petulantly virtue ethicist. And I don't want anything to do with most of them. If they're drowning, they'd drag me down with them if I tried to pull them out of the water.
Right now, realistically if I moved out I'd be pretty poor, so I'm just banking on the democrats winning in 2028 as they are very likely going to, then before shit starts collapsing anyway hopefully that will provide a few years to save up and move. I'm not waiting for another republican presidency to potentially happen after this. I know I might be fucked anyway but that's the best plan I can execute.
Every option is a risk. Some are better odds with better payouts.
Not by much
If you're living in LA California and you turn to your neighbors, which went 64/31 for Harris, and say "Fuck you, you're all on your own" when ICE rolled into town... Idk, buddy. Maybe Harris didn't deserve to win, if these are the kinds of people who claimed to support her policies.
TBH Cali should be a its own country. That said, assuming the same ~63% participation, that's more like 40% who could have voted did vote for Harris. If we're strictly talking about the character of the voters in a district, of course they'd be among the least shit. And in their case, its at least slightly more excusable given they're in a locked in blue state anyways. Still bad though, there are still down ticket and local elections that would matter.
Depending on your perspective on democracy, the "type of people" who vote doesn't matter. You "deserve" to win when you get the most votes, she did not. And at least in first past the post, the victorious side's voters and non-voters at least deserve the differential between the top two candidates. Do you not at least agree with that?
That said, your particular example is not particularly relatable. Unfortunately, I live in a wretched red state and have most of my life and extremely unfortunately I've spent time around the backwater ruroids that I've been desperate to escape. I've only just recently escaped to a small city. In fact, at bare minimum if I can't afford at all to leave the country by 2032, I hope to move to a nearby blue state urban area. We'll see.
That said, while I might be sad about my struggle to escape, I absolutely cannot begrudge anyone with the means to do so doing it regardless of where they live in the US.
Listen, I'm also a big fan of balkanizing the US in order to limit its global power. But lets go further. I want nothing less than Six Independent Californias.
I mean, more power to you. But the "I don't owe anyone anything" mentality gets you right back to the MAGA Libertarianism that's destroying the country.
That's probably because you just like a different super power, no? Do you think balkanizing the US would be good for the average person in America? I earnestly ask neutrally. Like I said after that election I'm pretty ambivalent about the well being of most Americans now, but I'm interested if you think squeezing the average person with such an action is justified? Or do you actually think it'd be beneficial?
"MAGA Libertarianism" Lumping all of your enemies together over simplifies things for a propaganda metanarrative. That said, I want to point out that the MAGA and Libertarians are generally people I'm getting away from primarily by moving out of the rural hellscape.
Further, I don't care about the country (and I mean beyond the government) because it doesn't care about me and it never will, its made that clear.
[===/o|]
Do you say the same about Ukrainians? Iranians? Palestinians? Turks?
Anyone who has been following the liberals' hostile attitude towards the Russian exodus is laughing up their sleeves at this.
But also, the whole theory that you're a prisoner of your national origin and should... idk... Rambo your way to freedom, because the "Half a Genocide" party lost a few swing states to the "Full Genocide" party? Feels like we're echoing the same fascist talking points of the MAGA crowd.
Might as well tell a bunch of Jews to stick around Germany and fix the Holocaust.
As an American, so do I. Unfortunately, a lot of people are deciding it's not worth it. The good thing is, the more skilled labor that leaves the US, the less GDP the US will have in the long run. In other words, skilled labor leaving is a good way to speedrun the collapse of a shitty empire.
To be fair, the ones with the desire and means to leave probably don’t have much overlap with the morons causing the problems
I can only speak for myself, but I fought as hard as I could before making the tough decision to leave. I spoke up to friends, to my mostly republican family, spoke up at work (government contractor) which almost cost me my job, spoke up on social media, called my elected representatives and lawmakers, went to protests, and helped organize protests.
But after June/July 2025 I began to realize we were not getting the momentum we needed to stop the MAGA movement, and it was time to begin making a plan B (physical escape).
I’d like to think most others like me have also tried to make an impact, but at some point you have to jump ship. There’s no reason to go down with the others who refuse to wake up and smell the fascism.
Guess what, as a Chinese American, I had Americans telling me to "go back to my country" because they're xenophobic af. You're just a xenophobe like them.
Hard to fix decades of shitty education, racism, corruption and institutional collapse.
Good on you for having the spine here
They cause this themselves by refusing to vote or voting in lunatics for years and years, among the most pissweak of excuses for their fall.
They continue to blame every single institution for that fall.
Now, they want to run and leave it collapse. Will they run again when the US tries to do it in their new country? None of us got the opportunity to vote in that election.
Fuck the downvotes you get, they hate the mirror. They could still fix this and take their country back if they went through some hardship on a general strike but nup, see ya.
They can’t take responsibility though. You can see it through these replies.
Edit: second paragraph
That’s what I thought too. We don’t need Americans to make our country shitty. We have enough troubles with our own far right parties. Keep those people away from us and try to get your shit together.
Yeah! It's always the refugees' fault for the problems they're fleeing. Grab yer fuckin bootstraps, my dudes.
/s obvs
I wish they would get a taste of being a refugee but we all know they won't, they will instead displace the locals and drive up prices
Pretty harsh to want people you haven't met to suffer like that.
They might get a bit of a taste, I can't imagine locals are gonna like a bunch of Americans moving in.
Stay in your shithole country and leave the world alone
You sound just like MAGA people talking about immigrants to The US.
You do realize not all Americans are assholes - and those who aren't are the ones leaving - right?