First term a lot of people considered leaving but frankly it didn’t feel like this.
Mods: I am unsure if this question goes against rule 2 or not. I mean to ask this as the general situation but of course it is political. The wording of the rule makes it unclear if politics are allowed or not…
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
If you have the opportunity and resources to get out, go. Things are only going to get worse.
I hate to break it to you but you can leave the US all you want but unless you get off this planet entirely you will not escape anything.
Fascism is coming for the entire world not just the US. It’s already well in progress as you can see many other countries following suit.
“the entire world”
Half of my friend’s family is gone and ICE is inching toward gestapo territory. It’s pretty bad
Were they legal? No judgement from me either way, but if they were make sure you include it when you tell people. I have some folks I am scared for and everybody’s argument to me has been “They’re only taking felons” or “they’re only taking illegals”
I don’t think so. So if you see them take somebody who has papers tell everybody.
The issue isn’t whether or not their documented or felons, it’s that they didn’t have a trial so they didn’t have a chance to prove either way
This is by far the worst term than the first.
- Massive Federal Firings
- Musk openly doing the Nazi Salute
- Trump/Musk claiming ‘domestic terrorism’ over Tesla vandalism and protests
- Trump just left and right, trying to stall, threaten, intimidate and insult judges that ruled against him
- Trump and his cronies ignoring all sorts of federal orders from judges
- Trump attempting to pull the biggest deportation operation seen in history
- Trump actually starting tariff wars with Canada, Mexico and other countries
- Trump and Vance talking down the President of Ukraine
- Trump siding with and favoring Russia/Putin
- Trump and cronies dismantling federal departments
- Trump telling everyone to ‘shut up’ about egg prices
He is just going on a infantile tyrannical rampage on everything that threatens or demeans him. Not the country, not the people, just him. He and his couch-fucking friend Vance and his boytoy Musk.
Oh and people always threaten to leave all of the time when someone they voted for didn’t get office and the opposing side did. Always happens every election. It’s all nothingburgers until people actually do leave.
A lot of innocent people are being/will be displaced unfortunately. [He] wants to undo everything that his predecessor has achieved. It is never too late to consider leaving.
Biden and Dems pushed hard against immigrants and beefed up ICE.
The time to leave if you’re able to was in his first term.
We got out, no regrets, and we’re not going back.
Any surprises you wish you knew about beforehand that you’d care to share? Any bullshit around financial stuff, filing taxes while abroad, etc?
Banks in the US really don’t want to give you your money. Keep a US phone # (I think Google phone has one which doesn’t kill you in charges) so you can contact them (when and if you transfer money).
You should take a trip first to set up some groundwork, find a trusted lawyer (we have two, one is our accountant, who’s also a lawyer, and another who is our immigration lawyer). They will go over all your paperwork for housing rentals, they should know people who can get your health insurance set up -you probably will need private health care +repatriation insurance until you are a permanent resident. Cost is around €50/per person per month, paid monthly (for us).
Downsize as much as possible, do not put ‘artwork’ on you customs for for import as they will hold up the works. )paperwork, personal clothing, household goods, etc. vague and mundane.
Your first year RENT a place in a town you choose, you will know in that year if that’s where you want to be or not. Our experience was we got a place for summer (3months) then checked out all the towns along the coast and kept coming back to where we settled, so we found a place for a year there, then COVID… then found the place we are in the process of buying.
Walkable city, good infrastructure to travel by bus/train, 2 airports 1hr away in opposite directions. We don’t drive anymore & bike everywhere, and live 500M from the Mediterranean Sea.
So yeah… being by the water is absolutely worth any issues we encountered.
Ballpark of how much your process cost? I’m seeing two lawyers and now I’m wondering how much convenience I can afford. Nothing wrong with convenience either, I’m just poor.
I would say about 20k for the whole move…that’s just a ballpark, and that includes 1 year fam of 4 living without income (rent, etc) because for the first year you cannot make an income on the local economy. I actually needed this year because I was so burned out.
If you can work at home there are nomad visas for the taking… Ireland has a very good program but housing is expensive (there are some work/housing available).
This also wasn’t our first foray out of the US, I left when I was 18, came back for school, etc and then out again with a good offer where I met my partner. Moved back and when we tried to leave again the recession hit and had to hunker down until the timing was right.
Once you are out of the US your money goes further…IMO it has 'more value’s than in the US.
Thanks!
Also…I’ve tried to find the link and will keep looking, but there is a website that links you to people for ‘volunteer work’.
Think: farmers that need seasonal help with sheep shearing, etc, people who need pets sitting…things like that
you get housing and food, 5hrs day/5days a week max. Very safe, was recommended by a woman visiting our town who originally was from Oregon but is now in Ireland (she also recommend a place for work our son is now at).
If you want to know where it is going in the short-term, have a look at Orban’s Hungary. Rightwing populist voted in and then got to work at dismantling the state. Control judges appointments, curb the power of the judicial branch, silence critical media, pick a group to scapegoat, buddy of Putin. The list goes on. Democracy only works if people defend it and from my outside POV there aren’t enough people doing that just yet. It’s worse in Trump 2.0 because this time he came prepared.
There are already horror stories about people being caught up wrongly in the deportation efforts. That’s using very mild language for very traumatic events here. It’s come to a point where erstwhile allies of the US are advising their citizens not to travel to the US. Because they have lost faith in the rule of law there. Take a minute to let that sink in.
If you’re a US citizen, resist. The free state is under threat. If you’re an immigrant, be careful.
If you’re a US citizen, resist.
Easier said than done. There’s no clear point of leverage for people to lean into. The cops are ruthless. The liberal opposition is toothless and lame. People don’t really trust one another. There’s a strong attitude of “I’m just going to keep my head down until it blows over”. But we’re not even really in a crisis per-say, just yet. Trump’s a fucking menace, but the economy is strong and we’re not currently at the peak of a pandemic and there’s no hurricane about to decimate a random corner of the Gulf/Atlantic Coast.
I suspect we’ll see more points of galvanized opposition when the winds change. But for now, looks like Americans are going to lay back and think of England.
