- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
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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Rich muricans are leaving the US, most can barely leave the state.
Dislikes immigrants, and now emigrating. Lol
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.
Americans are immigrating to other countries, they just like to call themselves X-Pats® because they think immigrant is a dirty word
And yapping on twitter complaining about the locals and missing their life back home. #TakeMeBack
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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.
Beautiful place to nice to tbh, what would be your monthly total expenses be moving to Mexico vs America?
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.
They’re fleeing
Wish I could leave. This is going to get bad …
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.
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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 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.
not rich enough or smart enough
That’s most humans, just strive to learn the local language and culture and you’ll be fine.
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.
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.
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?
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.
For ethnically Japanese people*
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.
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
Wow! Incredible, well done
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 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.
They already do that in Mexico, they call themselves expats in their Facebook groups and complain about the locals
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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 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)_/¯
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.
That’s actually a quite condescending thing to say. And also not a surprise at all.
True. Side effect is probably that the usa sinks faster with each good person leaving. Still it’s hard to blame them for leaving.
How else do we get to Idiocracy faster?
I’m doing my part!
the usa sinks faster with each good person leaving
They get what they voted for.
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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.
Also Georgia found evidence that musk rigged it.
Trump got 49.8% of the vote.
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.”
Agreed
try to focus that hate on our elites
“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.
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.
68% of registered voters voted for Trump.
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.
🦗🦗🦗🎶
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.
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.
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.
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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:
- Our population is heavily propagandized to accept fascist behavior and rhetoric as normal, or even patriotic
- People in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods/cities struggle to see much of a difference between the parties because they are often living under full time military-style occupation by their local police force, even when their local government is run by Democrats. The tactics ICE is using against middle class white protestors are not new. They’re just new to middle class white people
- A lot of people with multiple kids and jobs, especially in states controlled by Republicans, are not reasonably able to vote because they don’t have the time and their state/local governments go out of their way to make it difficult
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.
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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.
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.
Not necessarily. There are Americans moving to Mexico and causing problems there.
Gentrification in Mexico City is a huge problem
