Where would I go if I migrated away? Most of the world is falling into authoritarianism as the child protection laws and the attempts to effectively ban OpenPGP encryption have proven. Not only that, most of us Americans only know English and a bit of Spanish (if even that).

So, even if I moved away and abandoned my friends and family to face the fascist wolves without me, then I’d only be delaying the inevitable. I’d only encourage you to move away if you’re trans, but otherwise we must hold the line here no matter how tempting it is to move away from it.

I feel people tend to forget that Canada almost voted in a Trump clone.

Same reason conservatives don’t want conservative women.

They don’t want something that fits their interests and opinions.

They want to beat and conquer something that thinks differently from them, and mold them into something that is subservient to their interest and opinions.

there’s at least 200 other countries that are at least as shitty as christo-fascists wish this one were. WHY CANT THEY MOVE.

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.

MASSIVE EXODUS!

single digit change in migration patterns

It’s pure hysterical clickbait. The far more newsworthy headline would be about people declining to immigrate to the US, as the Feds add more and more foreign nations to its shit list. Very obvious that Trump (by way of Steven Miller) wants the US to be Whites Only.

But they idea that people are leaving in droves requires you to believe that’s a viable option for anyone.

Why would the rich leave? Don’t they benefit from Trumps policies like tax breaks and stuff? Or do you just mean the moderately ‘normal’ rich people with ‘only’ 6-figure incomes?

Yeah, this isn’t cheap at all. It’s either a huge chunk of money up front or you have to uproot and move your family only taking what you can afford to the next country, a huge upheaval, with probably no support network at all where you move to. Ans that’s just residency, you’re not a citizen until you’ve put in years and meet whatever citizenship requirements.

100k isn’t that much money over here.

100k USD is barely anything in a big city.

Many Americans are, ironically, moving to Mexico.

And often (but of course not always) bringing gentrification and white supremacy bullshit with them.

emigrated to Spain in 23, took a remote job and was able to finangle a visa through their DNV

Wish I could leave. This is going to get bad …

True. Side effect is probably that the usa sinks faster with each good person leaving. Still it’s hard to blame them for leaving.

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.

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.

That’s actually a quite condescending thing to say. And also not a surprise at all.

I actually left the US because I have kids - I didn’t want them growing up there, or with the trouble we saw coming years ago.

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 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.

Now you’ve moved to Japan, with its rising far right politics

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?

Wow! Incredible, well done

50k? Trips and ____?

The average Joe working at the Ford factory

That isn’t the average Joe though, not by a long shot.

The average is the average Joan working as a cashier.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They already do that in Mexico, they call themselves expats in their Facebook groups and complain about the locals

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.

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.

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)

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.

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”.

will call themselves “expats” instead of immigrants.

They do, all the time.

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)_/¯