In its 250th year, is America, land of immigration, becoming a country of emigration?
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.
Since the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. hasn’t collected comprehensive statistics on the number of citizens leaving. Yet data on residence permits, foreign home purchases, student enrollments and other metrics from more than 50 countries show that Americans are voting with their feet to an unprecedented degree. A millions-strong diaspora is studying, telecommuting and retiring overseas.
The new American dream, for some of its citizens, is to no longer live there.
Quotas for legal immigration and temporary work permits need to be updated. Asylum seekers should also have well thought out quotas.
Illegals are not welcome and should go home.
We had a bipartisan immigration bill under the Biden administration. Guess who killed it?
It is important to understand that there are multiple different types of illegal immigrants, all reacting to the situation in USA quite differently, but the reported numbers blur all these differences into one giant mess of a kindergarten finger painting, with a lot of paint on clothes and hair and neighbors of the painters.
For decades immigrant workers from my pueblo in central Mexico have crossed back and forth, overwhelmingly illegally, and getting good work overwhelmingly without incident. They are EXPERTS in this working quietly and profitably, and this year I have heard of only one guy who was caught and deported back home. He then employed a different more expensive “coyote” to smooth his passage and his mother tells me he is now successfully back at work in Wisconsin.
Each winter many of them come home (less work up in the snowy North and Christmas makes home and family dearer), and this year was no exception. However, as of yesterday, the last of the snowbird laborers known to me have successfully returned al Norte.
Somebody found my post which described the political allegiances of my family members offensive. Weird, as various family members support either side of the political spectrum. Oh well, perhaps I offended both sides of the spectrum!
I found your post to be interesting. My sons and grandchildren have all gotten their Estonian Passports (because I was born in Estonia) which make them eligible to live and work in any EU country.
Both my parents were born in the Republic of Ireland and I got my Irish passport more than 15 years ago for two reasons.
1)Lower visa fees, since Ireland is on better terms with most of the world than the US.
- Ability to live in any EU country if things deteriorate here.
intercst
Someone should tell all those employers hiring undocumented workers.
To be fair, not all of them are knowingly hiring undocumented workers. Some might even be good people. But…we’ve got to get a handle on those employers who are breaking the law.
Yes, the laws requiring employers to check for documents should be enforced. Those who get hired w borrowed or fake documents should be detected.
When George Clooney secured French citizenship last year and confirmed that his family’s main home is now a farm in Provence, it sent a strong message about the standing of the American Dream. Clooney has been unusually blunt about what the move represents: a bet that his children would have a “much better life” in a country where fame matters less, privacy laws are stronger, and childhood can be more ordinary than it would be in Los Angeles.
We now have our second instance of voluntary deportation. The first was about a year ago, now comes news that a friend’s son is leaving the US for Nova Scotia because “I can’t stand to be in a country ruled by that man.” So the family is leaving, correction, has left.
Don’t know a lot more about it because we’ve been conversing only in texts lately, but the message couldn’t be clearer. Self deportation works. This is a white, well educated Doctor’s son’s family, so not exactly the target for this “self deportation” scheme.
I’m not surprised that living on a farm in Provence could result on a “childhood more ordinary than in Los Angeles”. Of course, the same could be said for growing up (wealthy) on a farm in Iowa or Missouri or even Shasta county in California.
DB2
I have a friend and his wife moving to Ottawa on 1 Feb last year! However, he did not move away from the snow!
JimA
Also fake IDs.
Two managers at Burnstein von Seelen Precision Casting, a metal mold casting plant in Abbeville, were arrested on charges of criminal conspiracy, identity fraud to obtain employment, and forgery.
The state alleges Christopher Douglas Ramey and Sandy Lynn Willis “knowingly facilitated the use of fraudulent identification by illegal immigrants they employed” by failing to verify the legitimacy of employees’ IDs before hiring them. An additional 48 workers at the business were detained by ICE for immigration violations…
The state alleges the four other defendants in the indictment were “document vendors” who obtained forged state driver’s licenses, U.S. Social Security cards, or other fake identification for people who are illegally living in the country to use.
The investigation, dubbed operation “Ghost Story,” began in the fall of 2024, officials said. Waters, the prosecutor in this case, said that he was approached by SLED [South Caroline Law Enforcement Division] agents who were frustrated that they didn’t have the federal support under former President Joe Biden to carry out immigration enforcement against individuals using falsified documents.
DB2
…and now, just maybe, we might see significant FINANCIAL penalties against the corporations and individuals who are doing and profiting from the illegal employment?
Give me a break. Waters is looking to run for AG, he’s playing political games.
Don’t hold your breath, accountability will stop at the mid-level managers who got busted. Sam Burnstein and Hartmut von Seleen probably don’t have anything to worry about. How could they possibly know that 48 out of their 200 employees were potentially undocumented?
Wasn’t this under the Biden administration or did they mean ‘fall of 2025’?
JimA
This article mentions a two-year investigation.
A two-year investigation into immigrants with fake identity documents led to federal officials detaining 48 workers at a South Carolina metal casting business and six people facing state charges, including two top managers at the plant, authorities announced Thursday.
DB2
Six months ago the NYT had a piece on fake IDs. It can cause a lot of problems for someone whose identity was stolen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/us/undocumented-worker-stolen-identity-dan-kluver.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Dan Kluver saw the police lights flashing in his rearview mirror late last year and eased his car onto the shoulder…“License and registration, please,” the officer said…“It’s strange, but it looks like your license has been suspended,” the officer said. “You’ve got another driver’s license with some issues down in Missouri.”…
The officer had no answers, but Kluver feared he might know what was happening. Over the years, there had been signs that something wasn’t right — stray letters about wages earned in unfamiliar towns and collection notices for debt that wasn’t his. Kluver had tried to untangle the mess several times by hiring tax specialists and driving to government offices across the state only to run into the same bureaucratic dead ends…
His case was one version of a problem that’s been spreading across the country for years. The government estimates that as many as one million undocumented workers are using fraudulent or stolen Social Security numbers…
Some years the other Dan Kluver had earned more than his own salary at a local sugar beet factory, which pushed the total income under his Social Security number into a higher tax bracket as the debt started to mount…
He waited for relief while the I.R.S. docked his annual tax returns and garnished a few of his paychecks, costing him thousands. Finally, a few months before their wedding in 2012, Kristy decided to pay off the balance, emptying her savings and sending in a check for $6,000. Their relief lasted until the next tax season, when a new bill arrived — this one for $22,000.
DB2
I do not like this. My parents were part of coming to the US for a better life. They left behind an Ireland that had a dictator who only listened to the Catholic Church.
The risk takers need to stay and improve the country they are troubled by.
We send our army into places along with our money because the risk takers did not make things better in those places. Instead, the risk takers left those places to come here.
The idea that the risk takers ONLY take jobs Americans don’t want is not true. American employers love anyone who will work for less money under the table. That reaches far up into middle-class jobs. We have had machine shops in CT staffed only by illegal workers. The workers are only considered better because they are cheaper to hire.