Californians reportedly preparing to move out of the country over the election: ‘I’m very scared’
There are some Californians preparing to move out of the country because of fears of the 2024 election, according to a new report.
The election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris has reportedly given some Americans so much anxiety that they want to move overseas.
‘They want an option to escape.’
The Los Angeles Times interviewed several global immigration experts who said Californians are planning to flee the United States because of the political “divisiveness in the country.”
Mykel Dicus of California said before the election that he would want to move out of the country if Trump won the election.
“If a regime like MAGA should win this election, I’m very scared,” the 54-year-old said. “I just feel like it’s time to enjoy a life that’s free from any American worry.”
Dicus said he toured Spain in September and is currently attempting to procure a specialized Spanish visa for remote workers. Dicus said he hopes to secure a digital nomad visa and move to Spain within the next three years.
Henley & Partners — the self-described “global leader in residence and citizenship by investment” — said the number of requests to move overseas has already exceeded last year.
The consultant company revealed that about 80% of their U.S. clients want to bolt out of the country because of political issues.
“They want an option to escape. Now with the election, people have opinions on both ends, and they’re worried,” said Basil Mohr Elzeki — who leads the North American operations for Henley & Partners.
Elzeki noted that most of his business has come from California residents.
He pointed out that some popular countries for Americans fleeing included Antigua and Barbuda, Portugal, Malta, Greece, and Spain.
Jen Barnett is the founder of Expatsi — a company that helps Americans find a new home abroad. Barnett told the Los Angeles Times that her website’s traffic skyrocketed by 900% after the first presidential debate between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Following Trump’s nomination as the Republican presidential candidate in the 2016 election, Jen and her husband, Brett Barnett, began searching for a new home overseas and eventually moved to Mexico earlier this year.
“Just that he could be nominated to me meant that something was irreparably broken, and it wasn’t something we could get back,” Jen told the Los Angeles Times.
According to the outlet, it is not just liberals looking to get out of the country because of political divisiveness.
“Anecdotally, I’ve heard more and more folks talking not just about a Trump administration, but about the divisiveness in the country,” said Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels — a migration scholar at the University of Kent in Brussels.
Marco Permunian — the founder of Italian Citizenship Assistance — noted that there had been a surge of Americans searching for a home abroad grew in 2016 but that that surge had continued to rise during Biden’s first term.
“We came to the conclusion there is a sense of fear in general, and that affects people from both sides of the political spectrum,” Permunian said.
Patrick Murray — director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute — stated, “I’d be willing to bet that the partisan rancor of the past few years has played a significant role in the heightened desire to emigrate.”
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