Quote:
Originally Posted by direwolf
If Trump wins a 2nd term and the U.S. inevitably sinks deeper into authoritarianism, I wonder if we finally start to see a mass exodus of people packing up their families and leaving the U.S. to start new and better lives in more democratic countries.
I know a lot of Americans were saying "that's it, I'm moving to Canada" after the last election, but of course nobody actually followed through at the time. I'm betting this time people will be much more serious about looking into their immigration options. I certainly would.
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I've read a lot of people saying this lately (on reddit and a couple travel forums mostly, so take it with a grain of salt). Good in theory, but in practice it's not as simple as packing up and moving to a new country because you feel like it. I say this as someone who spent the past 10 months going through the process of moving to the EU a couple weeks ago for work, and experiencing first hand how tricky it is even when you already have a job lined up. I even had a 3rd party EU company holding my hand the entire time. Not an easy feat. If you are somebody with no job lined up, no in-demand skillset that an EU citizen can already do and no family-line that has maintained their citizenship to any EU country, forget about it.
Also during these covid times, the American passport is as useless as it gets right now. The majority of those 1st world countries those Americans will want to move to have banned US passports. Other than a few destinations desperate for tourist dollars, there are very few options for Americans to travel to right now. That will change in the future if/when the pandemic gets under control in the US, but that is IMO at least a year away to even begin those talks.
And forget Canada. Not only is Canada 'closed' to non-essential arrivals, but applying and having a positive results in Canada's immigration system is even more difficult to achieve then the US. Yes it happens, but not in as great numbers as the anti-immigration crowd seems to think. I also say this as someone who has been attempting to get my fiancé into Canada for the past 2 years. Marrying a Canadian citizen is a path forward (hence me moving to the EU to get married there), but not a realistic option for everyone. A family of 4 quitting their jobs thinking they can just pack it up from down south and move to Canada, that's not going to happen as easily as they think.