- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
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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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?!
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.
the usa sinks faster with each good person leaving
They get what they voted for.
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.
So they both voted for Trump. There’s no debate. That’s what happened.
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.
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.
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Every abstained vote is a vote for trump, so 68% of the country voted for Trump.
If you go from abstaining to voting for Trump, then you’ve voted twice!
A lot of people wanted to vote but couldn’t because they were purged off of voter rolls.
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.
How else do we get to Idiocracy faster?
I’m doing my part!
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.
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.
Not necessarily. There are Americans moving to Mexico and causing problems there.
Digital nomads in Mexico City
Gentrification in Mexico City is a huge problem
That’s actually a quite condescending thing to say. And also not a surprise at all.
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.
Trump has deported fewer people than Biden
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?
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.
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.
Don’t forget she’s also a member of an insane cult that force it’s lower tier members to give up their life savings and adopt their children away to higher tier members !
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.
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.
Wow! Incredible, well done
Thank you <3
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 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 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:
- renouncing your citizenship is difficult and expensive
- it’s hard to avoid the US
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.
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.
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.
that he would not consider me “an immigrant” because I’m from the west.
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.
Expat means that your intention isn’t to settle down and stay.
Personally I’m not thrilled with how many immigrants to Sweden are raving religious lunatics. We spent 1000 years under the oppression of one of these insane sects (Christianity) and have enjoyed our freedom immensely.
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
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.
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.
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.
Your associate is racist. You should tell them.
They’re fleeing
Wish I could leave. This is going to get bad …
If we could leave, we would leave.
Definitely out of reach for most. So many are paycheck to paycheck as it is
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.
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
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://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.
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.
If ı would get a job offer with 100k$ ,I would still not consider on USA
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.
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.
American “Digital Nomads” Swarm Mexico City, Angering Locals | The Daily Show
You must be kidding.
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 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.
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
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!
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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.
I don’t think they owe anyone shit.
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.
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.
Which are also usually people who voted for Harris.
Contractualism
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.
Fascism doesn’t end at America’s borders, as anyone in Cuba or Venezuela or Iran or Gaza can tell you.
Every option is a risk. Some are better odds with better payouts.
Which are also usually people who voted for Harris.
Not by much
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.
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.
If you’re living in LA California and you turn to your neighbors, which went 64/31 for Harris,
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.
Maybe Harris didn’t deserve to win, if these are the kinds of people who claimed to support her policies.
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.
TBH Cali should be a its own country.
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.
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 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.
Listen, I’m also a big fan of balkanizing the US in order to limit its global power.
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?
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Do you say the same about Ukrainians? Iranians? Palestinians? Turks?
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.
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.
Hard to fix decades of shitty education, racism, corruption and institutional collapse.
