In addition to immigration laws, there are lots of other reasons that make it difficult to move. Aside from obvious financial considerations, it is difficult to just walk away from one's social circle. People often underestimate the importance of social support (I'm talking about friends and family here). Cultural differences compound this social isolation further.

Immigration is only easy if you're wealthy.

Us citizen here recently moved to Sweden. I have a lot of things going for me: I was able to save up money working in tech, I'm using that to pay for living and tuition on a study permit, recently divorced and mostly estranged so I don't have a lot of ties holding me back, I have a sought after skillset and enough savings to basically be guaranteed I was accepted.

I'm still struggling with everything. There was and is so much paperwork, so many loose ends, even after getting here it's just been months of hardship trying to get stuff lined up. Trying to get my savings out of USD without interrupting being able to pay for things and not risk being flagged for money laundering is an ongoing battle. Housing here is wonky and I'm risking homelessness next year if I can't get it figured out in time. I have no strong community ties here yet so I'm toast if I stumble too badly. The US has their grubby hands all up in my business still so I'm answering to two countries at any given time instead of just one.

There are certainly avenues people can take to get out of the US that are easier than what I've done but anyone who says it is easy is full of shit or incredibly privileged.

Dude, I would flee the US in a heartbeat to somewhere that isn't a fascist state if I feasibly could, as I kinda don't feel safe here as a citizen, let alone what anyone visiting the country may feel like.

I could have gained citizenship in Spain or Portugal based on my family name alone (and like €600 or so) when they had the citizenship path for Sephardic Jewish heritage. I found out too late though and they had closed the door before I even knew about my distant relatives in the first place.

Wife is Irish enough to claim her passport so we're working that path currently. Those things are just your right to establish a life there, though, and don't include figuring out housing, source of income and everything else.

It certainly feels like we're going to miss our chance, but it's definitely worth it to keep working toward IMO.

Can't really immigrate as a disabled person. I'm basically considered unwanted trash by everyone.

On top of that, people have families, jobs, and other commitments that hinder their plans. Moving to another town is already hard enough as it is, but relocating to another country is even harder.

While it’s certainly possible and perhaps even advisable, it’s not a realistic option for most people. If your life is in danger, remaining isn’t really an option, so any associated difficulties with moving and starting anew are the lesser evil. However, for everyone else, the situation gets complicated.

Americans have probably the easiest migration path in the world. Strong passport, very high wages and currency value, strong migration support and programs, remote friendly economy etc etc.

If it's not sarcasm in response to americans telling other people to just move to another country/overthrow government, it can be a common misconception. Yet I struggle to see where it comes from: as far as I can tell, "just moving to another country" is not something most people who work for a wage can easily do

I actually looked into migrating a bit under Bush and they were more lax then. It was at least a year waiting list, you often had to have a marketable skill of some sort in demand in the country or enough money to basically never work again there. You had to have a clean record, pay several thousand for paperwork and lawyers, wait for approval, some wanted you to try and find employment before hand. It's probably much stricter no as I doubt I could immigrate to Canada from the USA. They're looking primarily for healthcare workers now and a lot of places because of their aging populations and lower birth rates. It's nuts.

Yeah. Apparently to these people, America is the only country that people can think of that has strict immigration laws. Everyone else is apparently open borders without question.

It's not even just the laws, it's very expensive to move.

I’ve also read “move to another state” a lot. Which is also much easier said than done, even though there are some very legitimate reasons. Moving from a low cola to a high one is tough.

Yeah, some countries do have very strict standards for entry as much as the US; they'll choose only those they deem worthy by their standards -- entry is only possible with either level of wealth, skill sets, pedigree, language, or a combination of those.

However, there are some people in my country who envy and would even fight to get a chance to be American, despite the ongoing horrors in there, because they still equate citizenship in a developed country with wealth and supposed freedom from corruption.

Emigrating and immigrating as they are, poor people mostly cannot.

I've always wondered how easy it would be to just move to Mexico or Canada, since either is possible to drive to. Like, legally or not.

Not everyone will be able to move, it's true, but a lot of countries have provisions for reclaiming citizenship if you can show that an ancestor (usually only in the last couple of generations, but not always) was a citizen.

For instance, Ireland: if one of your parents was an Irish citizen, born on the island of Ireland, you can claim citizenship and a passport with minimal paperwork. If your parents weren't born there, but a grandparent was, there's more paperwork involved, but you can still get citizenship and a passport.

Once you have a passport for an EU country, you have a lot more freedom to travel, and settle, anywhere in the EU.

Many other countries have similar systems, so, if you do want to leave, it can be worth studying your family tree to see if there are any recent immigrants.

Not only the laws and the costs, there's also the fact that I just don't want to change the way I live. There's nowhere on Earth that has the things I have here, and I own land (admittedly only .25 acres, but still).

Stay and vote!! Talk to your neighbors and vote!!

I don't want americans to leave the united state of fascism. I want them to stop voting in imbecilic tyrannical genocidal despots that are convicted rapists who like to fuck children so much that they are compromised by the russians.

Now let me be clear, the orange buffoon that's in 'control' now is all of the above, but any one thing of the above list is bad.

If a fair election ever happens again -because, let's face it, it's not guaranteed- and you feel that the person you are about to vote for is a russian stooge, or a kiddie fiddling rapist, or an imbecile etc etc then STOP ...and then vote in the person who will most likely not rape children, or try to overthrow your government for their own personal gain 👍.

I have sort of the opposite problem. My wife and I moved to Japan in our 20s and it was pretty damn easy because I'm a citizen and I had family help me find an apartment for us. We were 100% set in terms of basic necessities in like a week and could start job hunting immediately. Now that I'm in my 40s, we're trying to go back to Canada so we can take care of our parents more and let the kids experience Canadian schools, but it's so god damn expensive to do anything.