On Facebook I have begun getting ads from a vendor that wants to sell you a book explaining how you can easily move abroad – and even get a foreign passport in 90 days!
Many commenters to those ads think this sounds cool – while others point out it’s mostly a scam. Ultimately, the people who can get residency in other countries, are, per the book’s own recommendations – mostly those lucky to have a right of descent ancestry privilege. For the rest, their book and services are a scam. And unless you are already a dual citizen, you are not going to get a passport in 90 days!
I posted the following comment:
I spent the last year surveying news stories about Americans who moved abroad. 2 out of 3 subjects in those stories obtained visas through one of these 3 methods: (1) Marriage to a foreigner, and typically a young American woman marrying a guy in another country, (2) had pre-existing dual citizenship, and (3) had a right of descent ancestry to receive residency in the country. The next was a work visa.
In general, for most Americans to move abroad you need to be relatively young, have the right in demand skills (typically STEM or health care), or, marriage, or right of descent ancestry privilege, or pre-existing dual citizenship, or visa via investment which is often on the order of US $500,000 or much more, depending on the country.
Many countries have age restrictions (Australia, New Zealand and others) or take age into account in calculating a qualification score. Higher ages lead to lower scores.
There are probably up to about two dozen countries where it is easier to emigrate, notably some Central and South American countries, and some Caribbean islands that sell residency or citizenship for investment.
There are exceptions where it is easier for Americans to emigrate – but those are exceptions.
At any given time, about 2-3% of Americans live abroad (there is no exact count, only estimates and they vary). Perhaps 20+% of those are U.S. military personnel and their families. About 25% are on temporary work assignments. About 27% of Americans who live abroad are in Mexico (many with prior dual citizenship), about 12-13% in Canada (also with dual citizenship or US workers in Canada with long term residency visas).
Many first-generation children of immigrants to the U.S. are both US citizens (because they were born here) but are also eligible for citizenship in their parents’ ancestral country. This gives them the privilege of easily moving later in life, to their ancestral country, if they wish.
Maybe 1% of American retirees retire abroad and many of those do so because they have family connections, or they were originally born in the other country, but later became American citizens. Some countries are welcoming to American retirees (Belize, Panama, Ecuador, Costa Rica, as examples). You usually need to have a decent passive income source (in other words, you are not expected to work).
Not nearly as many Americans live abroad as the media stories would have you think are living abroad. And it is not so easy to move abroad as the media stories would have you believe – you can’t just pack up and move to another country. For most people, it’s pretty complex and for many, it may not be possible at all – unless you have an “immigration privilege” such as right of descent ancestry or prior dual citizenship option.
Doesn’t mean it can’t be done – it is just that the media has created a myth that Americans can move anywhere they want.