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Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers
(www.wsj.com)
They're fleeing
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.
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 personally know two people that have left so I’m not surprised.
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.
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 mean, yeah?
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.
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
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.
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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
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
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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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