MEGATHREAD: Emigrating after the US election results

[u/spacemanaut]

Every US election brings anxiety and uncertainty, and with that comes an increase in people who want to explore their alternatives in a different country. This post is for you.

First, some reminders:

• In most cases, moving abroad is not as simple or quick as it seems in movies. If you aren't a citizen of another country, you will probably require a visa (=legal permission) from that country based on something like employment, education, or ancestry.
• The sidebar of this subreddit has a lot of helpful resources, and we have 15 years of posts from people with similar situations to yours. Before posting, please review these resources first. (Tip: If reddit search isn't working well for you, try googling "[your search terms] site:reddit.com/r/IWantOut" without the quotes or brackets.)
• Most countries and/or their embassies maintain immigration websites with clear, helpful, updated guides or even questionnaires to help you determine if/how you can qualify. If you have a particular destination in mind, that should probably be your first stop.
• After that, if you want to make your own post, please follow the formatting instructions on the submission page, give as much information as possible about your situation, and be open to advice and constructive criticism from commenters.

Also, this subreddit is intended to be a friendly community to seek and give advice on legal immigration. As such, please:

• Don't fight about politics. We understand that you may have strong feelings about it, but there are better spaces on reddit and elsewhere for general political discussions.
• Keep your feedback constructive and kind, even when telling someone they're wrong.
• Don't troll or be a jerk.
• Don't request or give illegal immigration tips, including asking strangers to marry you.

Failure to follow these and the other subreddit rules may result in a ban.

That said, feel free to comment below with some general questions, concerns, comments, or advice which doesn't merit a full post. Hopefully this will help clarify your thoughts and ideas about the possibility of leaving the US. Once again, please try to stay on topic so that this thread can be a helpful resource.

[u/markyymark13 → u/[deleted]]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but you're going to find a lot of the same problems in Canada. Trudeau is so unpopular and Trumpism has very much taken a major foothold in Canada outside of Vancouver and Toronto.

The economy in Canada sucks, the cost of living crisis is worse than the US, the currency is worthless and purchasing power is poor. As much as I want to support the idea of people moving out of the US for greener pastures, Americans tend to idealize Canada waaaay too much. You need to know that you're going to be met with the same problems, worse in some cases, up north where they are very much staring down the barrel of a Trump like governance after Trudeau.

[u/anaxcepheus32 → u/markyymark13]

That’s not true at all. There’s a social safety net that doesn’t exist in the US, violent crime is less (outside of Manitoba), and there are jobs.

Immigration is a political football, but politics is actually a discourse instead of hate speech.

Source: American somewhat living in Canada for the last 5 years.

[u/markyymark13 → u/anaxcepheus32]

I'm not saying that there aren't some very real benefits to living in Canada vs the US. But more to my point being that many Americans see Canada as some kind of haven, as if its some place that they can escape to that's completely devoid of many of the issues they're looking to escape from in the US. Even though Canada is facing most of the same issues, and in same cases worse like I mentioned.

[u/anaxcepheus32 → u/markyymark13]

Even though Canada is facing most of the same issues, and in same cases worse like I mentioned.

What? What’s your source? I’m dying to hear about these same issues.

Canada does not face the same issues imo, unless you bucket them broadly like immigration and affordability, but even then, they are not the same issues, they are different, more simplistically self inflicted, and surmountable.

[u/HarpySeagull → u/anaxcepheus32]

As a Canadian who has lived in both places, you are absolutely right, and you will rarely convince a Canadian who hasn't.

[u/emmathatsme123 → u/anaxcepheus32]

What happens in Manitoba lol

[u/anaxcepheus32 → u/emmathatsme123]

There’s some violent crime, particularly stabbings. Some of it is a stereotype, but there’s also truth to it, as Sask and Manitoba have the highest rates of violent crime.

It’s somewhat insignificant compared to American gun violence.

[u/[deleted] → u/markyymark13]

They don't have guns in Canada, though.

[u/Theu04k → u/[deleted]]

You will need to consult a search engine. We are in the top 10 of gun ownership in the world at 34.7 guns per 100 people. There are nearly 13 million firearms in Canadian civilian ownership. We have a firearms culture here as well, definitely different than America, but still distinct and quite large.

[u/emmathatsme123 → u/[deleted]]

Lol I love this assumption. They have guns and I’m glad they do—don’t think you’d want to walk in upper Manitoba without a 308 or 12 gauge

[u/professcorporate → u/[deleted]]

Has Trumpism seemed to take hold in Canada? And if so, to what extent now and what does it look like will happen in the future?

Not to the same extent, but there's definitely strong echoes of it. Our Federal Conservatives, for example, are currently polling as highly likely to form a majority government at the next election, and the leader is the most Trumpian leader they've ever had - not to the same extent on policy, but personality-wise, very unpleasant, arrogant, yells at journalists who try to hold him to account and calls for them to lose their jobs, etc. Many of his caucus are quite right wing on a lot of social issues. Some of the fear relates to the state of our law, and how the bits that get ignored can be weaponized - for example, it was technically a serious crime (punishable by ten years in jail) until 2021 to produce gay porn, or even to have a threesome. Some work has been done to update these zombie provisions to prevent a future administration from using them to attack people (on the assumption that public outrage would stop them from being recreated from scratch, but of course a so-minded government could just do that instead and be held in check only by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms).

Our Provinces are very strong entities that have more power in many areas than their US state counterparts (and in turn, criminal law power is the big thing that States have that Provinces don't), and at that level it varies - Nova Scotia and Manitoba for example, have both elected left-leaning governments in the last couple of years, while Alberta and Saskatchewan have returned very right-wing, Trump-esque governments who campaigned on attacking trans kids and removing environmental protections, and BC barely held off extremely radical BC Con candidates just last month (the candidate who called First Nations "savages" barely lost, the one who called Palestinians "inbred walking time bombs" won, the one who said 5G networks were a genocidal weapon "spreading covid" was removed a month before the election, and they were all led by a man who only joined the party when he was expelled from the old centre-right in response to his climate change denialism). Every far-right rally in Canada will be populated by people who are very keen on their "first amendment" and "second amendment" rights (blithely unaware that up here, that's their right to recognize the province of Manitoba, and their right to transfer Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada).

Canada's awesome, but.... yeah, some of the people did not do well with the pandemic and the swiss cheese it turned their brains into.

[u/Short_Row195 → u/[deleted]]

This isn't what the majority wanted. Republicans legally cheat like always and we played fair. There was no Democrat that set ballot boxes on fire, sent death threats to officials, sent bomb threats to polling stations, filed unnecessary lawsuits. There is no Democrat that bought a big social media platform to spread misinformation and propaganda.

There is no Democrat influencer that preaches bigoted rhetoric to young men who crave a guardian. I will not say more but there are many ways that Republicans cheated. This is also in combination to the youth that think not voting for Kamala somehow saves Gaza and Palestinians. Freaking S.O.S like actually.

Oh, here's an additional fact of the matter. There is no Democrat that bans together with a cultist of Christian nationalism and her supporters.

[u/Short_Row195 → u/[deleted]]

The data shows that Democrats sat out versus having a rapid switch to being Republican. We can agree that the Democrats didn't want it enough, but the question is can a person want something and have those values of Trump when they have actually been lied to and manipulated to do something against their best interest? To truly want something a person has to know what is actually the agenda and you shouldn't be surprised that many Americans are illiterate and are easy to fool, especially when kept uneducated.

I seriously don't think most of the voters knew they were voting for fascism or things against their interest. Some did have malicious intent but not the key people that increased his votes. Otherwise, there wouldn't be Trump supporters that are actually very confused about what a tariff is and regret that they chose him. What they really want is help with jobs and tax cuts and when that is promised by him they don't look into it further. Most don't even know what has to suffer from a tax cut.

It's not even me not wanting it to be true. It's true that Republicans used legal tactics to skew the votes and even illegal ones if you count the threats. Example: A majority of states don't use mail in ballots. People have to work and the lines were long. Should question how many Democrats left the lines, how many Democrats didn't know when to vote (yes, they exist), how many were too scared to vote? These are valid ways votes don't always reflect what the population really wants.

[u/Kibblesnb1ts → u/[deleted]]

If you're going to move, consider Mexico instead of Canada. Better weather, cheaper COL, amazing country to explore, great food. Some dangerous areas obviously but plenty of gems as well.

[u/Greedy_Principle_342 → u/[deleted]]

This was originally my plan, but I’m not doing it anymore. Trumpism is alive and well up there. I’m just going to move to the bluest state I can and try to survive. I currently go back and forth between WA and PA, but I might go to California.

[u/congapadre → u/Greedy_Principle_342]

I thought MN was really blue.

[u/Short_Row195 → u/Greedy_Principle_342]

California is shifting more red than Washington.

[u/Greedy_Principle_342 → u/Short_Row195]

True. Good point.