Op-ed: Will the U.S.A. See Emigration After The Election?

ONTARIO, CANADA –  The United States has always been a net immigration country, in that far more people immigrate to America than leave it for migration to foreign countries. This fact gives proof of the desirability of life in America. In comparison, Europeans during the 19th and 20th centuries, and Middle Eastern and Asian countries in the 21st century, witnessed populations seeking to move to America, some for its economic and political freedoms and others for the ease of upward mobility.

Although there are no official counts of Americans emigrating, there are some migrations that can be studied – firstly the 19th century emigration of blacks to Liberia, and secondly, the emigration (mainly to Canada) by young men avoiding the draft requiring military service during the Vietnam War. Then there are lesser emigrations, such as the “Loyalists” who moved to Canada when the U.S. declared its independence and again after the War of 1812. Some Blacks fled to Canada in the nineteenth century by means of the “underground railway”. Other examples include immigrants to America deciding to spend their retirement years back in their birthplaces or spend part of the year there. There are also some wealthy people who retire to the Caribbean for the weather and/or the tax-free status.

In the case of Israel, some religious and/or Zionist American Jews choose to live in the Jewish homeland, particularly the Modern Orthodox. In total, some 3,052 American Jews moved to Israel in 2018, according to the Jewish Agency. Increasing violence directed to visibly Jewish men will exacerbate this emigration.

The countries with the most American emigrants range from Mexico (900,000), Canada (738,000), India(700.000) to the Philippines (600,000). With the possible exception of Canada, these are countries where immigrants come to America during their working years and either retire back home or split their time between their country of origin and the USA Other countries attractive to American emigrants are countries that are thought of as safe, such as Portugal, Costa Rica, and Panama. Then there are the countries that are cheapest to live in such as Vietnam and Thailand in Asia, and Slovenia and Bulgaria in Europe.

One can surmise that if riots in large American cities continue and shooting deaths escalate, Americans may look out for safe countries, and as many Americans are hurt financially by Covid 19 lockdowns, they will search out cities with cheap living costs. Young people who work substantially online and have trouble affording housing in large American cities, and those who are worried about crime rates, would seem to be likely candidates for emigration.

But up to the present day, American emigration is small. People fed up with the crime and traffic and high housing costs of places like New York and Chicago mostly move to Florida or other locations within the United States.

Even those American blacks who complain most loudly about alleged systemic racism whether or not their ancestors were slaves, seldom have advocated for a return to Africa. Perhaps that is because they know that life in a racialized America is still far better than life in Africa.

In addition, we know what happened in the African country of Liberia which was founded by blacks from the United States,first by free people of color, and later, former slaves, The mortality rate of these settlers was the highest in accurately recorded human history in that of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 survived. Th e American emigrants who did survive dominated Liberian politics and culture for most if its history up until the civil wars from 1989 to 2003, In the years since, warfare and genocide have sullied Liberian history even more than the early mortality rates.

Migrationpolicy.org states that “(of) the more than 400,000 Americans who took up Canadian residency between 1968 and 1978, an estimated 50,000 were draft-age males, and an unknown number of others, including family members of draft resisters, emigrated as a direct response to foreign policy at the time. After 1978, the numbers declined rapidly, to stabilize by the mid-1980s to approximately 5,000 persons per year.

At one time, Americans emigrated to Canada to avail themselves of social policies including GBTQ rights and legalized marijuana. However, there are now so many American states that permit both gay marriage and legal marijuana, that Canada is no longer receiving refugee claimants in this area.

For some years now, Americans, particularly in media and education, have begun to demonize politicians of the conservative mindset. There are quite a few states and municipal councils that have been subject to one party, Democratic Party, rule. When there is no effective opposition party and the media, such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and PBS are effectively branches of the Democratic Party, then many people feel disempowered. Others believe that the Democrats, under the guise of “social justice” are becoming dominated by Marxists, Islamists and Globalists who want to destroy America as it is. Both groups might consider emigration should Biden-Harris prevail.

The Democrats have never accepted the repudiation of their elitist government by the masses and have spent every day since Trump’s election trying to find a way to impeach him or indict him. Instead of offering the American people a set of alternate policies for civilized discussion and debate, the Democrats attempted to use the Muller Investigation to find some evidence of Trump collusion with Russia, then they tried impeachment with allegations of collusion with Ukraine, all with no success. In fact, the preposterous impeachment trial, that never had a chance, extended into February when all politicians should have been paying attention to the Wuhan Virus calamity. When President Trump appointed an expert panel and then stopped all flights from China by January 31st, Joe Biden mocked him for alleged racism and xenophobia toward the Chinese.

The American left concentrated more on Trump’s personality than on his policies, and their politicians spent almost the whole of the first Trump term demonizing him and trying to strip him of his duly elected status as President. We witnessed numerous Hollywood celebrities act like spoiled children and threaten that if Trump were to be elected in 2016, they would leave the country.

Trump supporters were wary of both the political elites and the entertainment elites. They realized that politicians such as Hillary Clinton, Joe (and Hunter) Biden, and Adam Schiff were corrupt and the entertainment elites – producers, television hosts, etc.- were shown too often to be sex abusers of their clients and employees or abusers of drugs and alcohol. In fact, of all the entertainers who made public statements that they would leave the country if Trump won the 2016 election, not one actually carried out their threats, and most refused to take calls from reporters asking them why they were not honoring their promises.

People begin to think about emigrating when their feelings are not just contrary to the President and party in power, but when their predominant feeling about the country is one of disgust. Unlike some previous emigrations, it is possible that after the November election we shall see conservatives and/or left-liberals becoming disgusted and emigrating from America.

The breakdown of trust and loyalty between citizen and country is akin to a divorce, and emigration is usually the culmination of years of dissatisfaction. But it is important to note that today’s interconnected world, with its communication devices and air travel, make the divorce far from final and thus the emigration might be a temporary or part-time development.

This is very different from the history of emigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, when my mother’s parents left Uman in the Ukraine in 1910 for Canada, there was no further contact with the families left behind. There was no phone service, mail, or visits, and they didn’t know whether their family survived the violence of the Cossacks, the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the Second World War, Stalin’s genocide or other events. Emigration in the 21st century is far different, and for an American from New York to move to Canada will be no more disruptive than a move to Florida. The “virtue signalling” aspect of emigration from a country that elicits more disgust than loyalty, is much easier when the repercussions are not severe.

Celebrities who often work all over the globe and who possess the wealth to enable them to have multiple homes in multiple countries can threaten to move because of their Trumpophobia. There is little downside for their threats due to an almost uniformity of ideology in Hollywood. We sense that their “promises” to leave the country are mere virtue-signalling.

And virtue-signalling may be all that it is, and not just for celebrities. According to statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the number of people from the US applying for permanent residency between the January inauguration and March rose only 3.6% from 2016 to 2017, according to a CNN report from June, 2017. 1,882 Americans applied for permanent residency in Canada in 2017, just 66 more applications from the same time period in 2016.

Emigration to any country, of course, depends on the ease of immigration laws in that country. And absence makes the heart grow fonder, so, expatriats in a diaspora will often join expatriat clubs.

Emigrating to Israel for Jews is a fairly easy process. There are organizations which help, loans which can be had, and automatic citizenship for the asking.

The CNN report notes that most immigration programs in Canada require a permanent job offer from a Canadian employer, one year of skilled work experience in Canada, a high level of English — and possibly French — and a significant amount of cash.

Having a Canadian spouse or relative to sponsor you helps, as does an acceptance letter from a Canadian school. Most emigrants wanting to move to Canada will need to hire a Canadian immigration lawyer and with additional government fees, emigration is not for the indigent.

Here is a list of the major problems a moderate conservative could view as so disgusting as to justify thinking of or actually acting on emigration after the election. The reader may judge whether we are more likely to see conservatives emigrate or left-liberals:

• Extensive crime in large American cities, especially Democrat-run cities.
• Riots and looting and arson by Antifa and BLM.
• Anti-white racism by BLM.
• The defunding of police.
• Homelessness and drug addiction in large cities.
• “Sanctuary cities”
• Political power in the hands of the Leftist-Islamist-Globalist alliance.
• Bail laws and leftist contributions that allow hardened criminals to be released to re-offend.
• Increasing electricity shortages in California.
• Chinese infiltration of American universities and tech companies.
• Censorship by Facebook and Google.
• Nearly four years of bizarre attempts to overthrow the results of the 2016 election by means of the Muller investigation and impeachment.
• Utilization of the power of the FBI and other state actors to frame General Flynn and spy (with illegal FISA warrants) on the Trump campaign and then presidency.
• The political attempts to stop highly qualified conservative Supreme Court appointees like Kavanough and Barrett.
• Mail in voting that allows for fraud.
• Soros funding of leftist District Attorneys.
• The Iran and Middle East strategy of Trump compared to Obama/Biden.
• The leftist and Islamist infiltration of the education system from primary schools through university.
• Submission to evil in the name of multiculturalism and inclusive diversity.
• Submission to gender activists.
• Politicians who use their service to hugely enrich themselves and their families.
• Lack of transparency in non-profits and politicized foundations, and the funding of BLM by large corporate donors.
• Increasing anti-Semitism and anti-Judeo-Christian values, with submission to Islamists like Omar, Tlaib, Emerson and Farrakhan.

Given the lack of emigrants at the beginning of the Trump presidency, it is unrealistic to expect a mass of emigrants should he get a second term, especially since some of the catastrophic thinking of 2015 to 2017 has been shown to be overblown. It may well be that conservative Americans who have seen the hard leftward direction of the Democratic Party, with power held by the “Squad”, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris, are the most likely Americans to emigrate if Biden wins..This will be more so if in its next election, Canada turns away from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s moderate leftist and globalist Liberal party and elects Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party.

Left-liberal emigrants who have spent the last four years demonstrating their hatred of America and its current President, may be surprised that people in the country to which they emigrate, have been listening to them and now also hate America. Such a reaction, based on the present self-hatred of the Left-Liberals may result in some countries being less than than excited to get leftist American immigrants, and in some of the emigrants returning home after a few years.