Life Choices: Esme Benjamin Time for Canada?

Heading into the election, a cottage industry of expatriation consultants has emerged.

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In september 2022, Heather and her husband were visiting friends in Portugal when Hurricane Ian began to close in on their hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida. Though the storm ended up making landfall farther south, the close call was a tipping point. Governor Ron DeSantis’s failure to prioritize them had been laid bare—he hadn’t sufficiently addressed the home-insurance crisis, which had been exacerbated by frequent natural disasters. It was the last in a long list of grievances they had against the governor, who had recently made it harder to get an abortion and easier to carry a concealed gun in the state. The couple began to contemplate leaving for good—not merely the state but the country, which they saw going in the same direction. They were able to acquire Portuguese “digital nomad” visas, with a path to citizenship through her husband’s heritage and, 18 months later, relocated to a calm coastal town outside Lisbon.

Despite the chorus of Americans who threaten to move abroad should their preferred candidate lose the election, few actually do it. The exodus rhetoric seemed to peak during Donald Trump’s first presidential run. In 2017, the year of Trump’s inauguration, U.S. applications for permanent residency in Canada increased by a lowly 1,300 people. Still, it’s hard to ignore the industry of immigration coaches and consultants that has emerged over the past few years, serving those who fantasize—even temporarily— about expatriating for reasons political or otherwise.