Is It Time To Leave The US?

Written By Leeja Miller

Sources:

Transcript:

This week the Supreme Court issued a ruling indicating that Donald Trump can use emergency powers under the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to deport people. His administration has indicated it wants to go even further, including sending American Citizens to a high security prison in El Salvador notorious for human rights abuses. Well known scholars of fascism like Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley have fled the country. WHITE LADIES are getting detained at the airport. And the New York Times is publishing articles like this opinion piece they dropped today with the headline “We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid.” If you live in America right now and haven’t been sucked into the MAGA cult, you likely are feeling a sense of unease, to say the least. Not just because your 401k value is plummeting dramatically in the face of an escalating trade war, but also because it feels like the walls are closing in on more and more people, both our rights but also our physical autonomy and safety. I don’t know about you but my fight or flight response has been ACTIVE. I alternate between considering full prepper lock down and fleeing to Europe, the motherland. I know which websites are the best for searching for apartment rentals in most major European cities because MY doom scroll of choice is “hmm I wonder how much an apartment in Paris costs, JUST IN CASE!” and also “how DO you flee across an ocean with a petulant stubborn English bulldog in tow??” and so many more questions. It’s exhausting and on top of it all the CONSTANT onslaught of horrible news makes it very hard to know how much panic is legitimate and what’s an overreaction. And when I’M spiraling personally I find that more information is helpful to get a grasp on what’s actually happening so it’s less of a nebulous unknown foreboding doom. And in fact it can be very helpful for me to stop and remind myself of the privileges that I do possess so that I’m not in my own head obsessing about myself and can instead move forward with a clear mind and pay attention to what does matter and what is ACTUALLY an emergency versus what is just a stress response. So today, in an attempt to offer you the same perspective and a moment of relief for your nervous system, I’m going to rank who should be fleeing the US, from “Get the fuck out” to “U R fine” including the news stories I’m using to support my arguments, because you know I always come with receipts. This is NOT to make light of the situation but instead because we have to laugh to keep from crying!!! We’re having fun here. Let’s get into it.

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Okay CATEGORIES ARE: get the fuck out, meaning you probably should seriously consider leaving, get your shit together meaning you should get your affairs in order, have your important documents ready, call your friend in Canada and see if they have a spare bedroom you know, make a legitimate actionable plan to leave. Next: high alert, begin to consider the possibility that it might be safer for you in a different country, and consider what that might look like for you. Next, KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED. Your safety is not actively under threat, there are not credible reports that you are being targeted for jail or deportation, but you’re certainly vulnerable to perhaps a watch list, and as things escalate you may want to consider leaving if credible reports start surfacing. And then there’s you are fine. The regime wants you here, even if you don’t openly support them, keep calm and carry on fighting the good fight.

Now obviously a few huge caveats because I can picture the comments already: obviously this stupid chart I’m making isn’t going to take into account every single potential identity of all 330 million people here, everyone’s situation is incredibly nuanced and boiling people down to a single identifier is naive and paints a very incomplete picture. But the regime IS boiling us all down to a few key identifiers, so I am using their criteria to determine who should or should not be worried. Additionally, you may have several personal identifiers that appear on this chart in different alert categories, this will hopefully help you suss out the nuances if there are some mitigating factors for or against leaving. And finally: YES this is stupid. We live in the stupidest possible timeline, it is infuriating, it is so fucking stupid. This is all stupid. I’m meeting the moment with the stupidity it deserves. But this is what I’ve been thinking about for weeks and I can’t stop thinking about it, and creating this graph has actually helped me, like I said, figure out what’s worth taking action on and what’s just my brain spiraling in unhelpful and anxiety driven ways. So this is stupid but I’m doing it because I hope it’s helpful.

And then of course there’s the major question of like okay so I’m high up on this list, I want to leave, but HOW??? I’ll get into that at the end because that is ALSO a thing I’ve been spiraling about so I’ve done a LOT of research! Great, with those ground rules in place, let’s do this. We’re gonna start with highest alert first.

Coming in at the top, the get the fuck out category, we have: undocumented folks and, whether or not you are here legally, immigrants from countries where people are mostly brown and or mostly not Christian. The quote unquote global south if you will. If you are here and you don’t have proper documentation to show that you’re allowed to be here, there is an active and proven threat against you, whether or not you’re a contributing member of society, whether or not you’ve ever committed a crime, whether or not you have any credible gang affiliation, honestly no matter what country you’re from originally. My sources: frankly too many to name, but the Supreme Court decision this week in the case involving Venezuelan migrants who were spirited away to an El Salvador prison without proof or due process, sheds some light on the threat. Trump relied on his alleged powers under the Alien Enemies Act to deport the immigrants in question, saying that this was an emergency, there’s an invasion at the border, cartels and Mexican gangs are terrorist organizations, these people are terrorists, and by the power vested in me by this emergency situation, I’m going to deport them without any notice or a chance to be heard by a judge. And the lower court blocked that, meaning the judge said no there’s a chance you actually don’t have that authority, turn those planes around. They didn’t turn the planes around but the government also then appealed that judge’s decision, and the supreme court weighed in and said no actually, lower court judge, you are wrong, Trump does have this authority. Because remember what I always say: the Supreme Court has a long history of giving incredible leeway when national security and emergency powers are invoked. Most famously in their Korematsu decision they decided that concentration camps filled with Japanese Americans on US soil were A-OKAY. In fact, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson mentioned Korematsu by name in her dissent, saying the court was wrong then just as it is wrong now.

That being said, the Supreme Court did confirm that these detainees DO in fact deserve due process, to be notified of their pending deportation and have an opportunity to be heard in court BEFORE they are deported. That’s little comfort to the people already sent to that prison in El Salvador, the government is arguing that the US now has zero jurisdiction to do anything to right those wrongs, but it means anyone currently being detained SHOULD, at least in theory, be given due process rights. So the Supreme Court confirmed what should be obvious but unfortunately bears stating plainly: due process does still exist. At least in theory. However immigration court is not criminal court and you are not guaranteed a lawyer. And the Supreme Court said that the way a person should contest their detention is through a habeas corpus petition. This petition is filed in court against the entity holding you against your will, and it’s meant to prove that your rights are being violated by your detention. You can file a habeas petition on your own behalf, but you’re gonna be a hell of a lot more successful if you have a lawyer to file it for you and represent you in your hearings. There are many lawyers who do this work pro bono, remember how I mentioned in an episode a few weeks ago that big law attorneys do a lot of pro bono work, a lot of them do work assisting with habeas petitions, because they tend to be isolated cases that are more manageable to handle alongside your other law firm work. But guess what all the major law firms are doing? They’re bending to Trump’s will and promising they’ll only do pro bono work that Trump approves of, and you can bet your bonnet he’s not going to approve of them continuing to help immigrants by representing them in court. So even though the Supreme Court confirmed your right to a hearing, the availability of lawyers that can do low cost or free work for immigrants, which wasn’t plentiful to begin with, is dwindling.

And if you are an immigrant here from a not predominantly white country, even if you are documented, are here legally, have been a contributing member of society for decades, have never committed any crime, have never pulled from the welfare system, have always paid your taxes on time, have been the perfect little immigrant, I’m putting you at the top of this list still. Because there are credible instances of US citizens and valid green card holders being deported, including to El Salvador, without due process, without having done anything wrong. ICE will make something up or fudge the truth and it can be hard to prove your legal residency here because they don’t care. Your safety is actively under threat, if I were you I’d be making plans to get the fuck out. Again this list is not meant to be alarmist, I am trying to genuinely assess the risks here, based on the hours and hours I spend every week combing through the news. There are too many stories of lawful residents being detained and some being deported, and even just detention without deportation can be incredibly traumatizing, the threat is very real, you are not overreacting if you are making plans to leave post haste.

Okay next down the list we have get your shit together. This means do you have your passport and other documentation together and ready to go. Do you have a plan for if you need to leave quickly? I would be reaching out to friends in other countries if you have any. I would be choosing which country I would go to and the best route to long term residency in that country. Just in case. On this list I have put anyone who’s brown and looks like they could have come from a Latin American or Middle Eastern country, or whose name sounds like it could be from those regions, or whose parents are from those regions, even if you were born here. My sources: stories are emerging of more and more people being detained at airports, including a lawyer, including US citizens who were born here but maybe have dual nationality with a country from those regions or whose parents are from there, especially if you travel there regularly, they have that information. You are at risk of being detained, and given how quickly they’re deporting people to avoid due process or being stopped, if you are detained you are at risk of deportation without due process. I would be making an exit plan.

If you are an immigrant from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, you are in the get your shit together category. Numerous reports are surfacing of German tourists being detained and deported, a Welsh girl was backpacking through North America and was detained and ultimately deported because they said she was illegally working on her tourist visa. She was trading work for a place to stay, a VERY common practice called WWOOFing where you work on someone’s farm and they provide room and board, for example. The BBC article about her return home reads the same as when you hear about Americans being detained in Russia and returned home. It says, quote “A backpacker detained in the US is back home in Wales after an emotional airport reunion, her father has confirmed.

Becky Burke, 28, had been held in a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing centre for 19 days after being denied entry at the US-Canada border.

Her father Paul Burke told BBC Wales "the nightmare is over" after his daughter was reunited with family and friends at Heathrow Airport earlier. … Mr Burke said: "It will take some time for Becky to recover from this traumatic experience.”

A Canadian woman was detained at the southern border of the US despite a valid work visa because there was record that a past visa application had been denied. She had gone through the correct channels to fix that visa issue and was simply trying to renew her legitimate visa when she was detained and questioned and ultimately told that the processing on her visa was incorrect. It’s still unclear why she was then held in a detention center for two weeks before being allowed to return to Canada. These are very real threats, being detained in a US immigration center is no fucking joke, if I were you I’d be getting my shit together.

And then finally on the get your shit together list is trans folks. This one I was a little on the fence about because frankly I think y’all have been in the get your shit together category since before Trump took office, but I also recognize that there are few countries where it’s easy to live openly and happily as a trans person. Additionally I am not seeing reports that there is new active danger of deportation or incarceration being currently enacted by this regime against trans folks. Anti-trans laws are being introduced and there is a lot of anti-trans rhetoric, but that was happening before Trump took office in January. That being said, the election of Donald Trump further legitimizes hate and that violence towards trans folks. You are not unreasonable if you are making plans to leave, and getting your shit together.

Next category is high alert. This means you are part of a historically marginalized group, there are signs this administration actively wants to remove your rights, though there are not reports to show that your bodily safety is under new and increased threat in the same way those in the higher tier categories are. I’d be considering my options if I were you, I’d be doing some research, I’d be seeing if I have ancestry somewhere that would allow me to get citizenship, I’d be thinking about applying for jobs internationally if I can. This category includes black people. Now if you’re black AND a recent immigrant or child of immigrants, those higher categories also apply to you. But if you are black and not a recent immigrant, descendants of formerly enslaved people for example, there is not new evidence of increased active targeting of black Americans, but the threat to you is higher simply because racism and hatred is being legitimized through Trump’s presidency, and because dismantling DEI programs and calling every black person a “DEI hire” is going to hinder your opportunities in this country. Plus the other threats to your physical safety and to incarceration that come with being black in this country, which is not new to this regime. Racism is a problem everywhere, but your opportunities may be less hindered elsewhere, where education is more accessible and less expensive, where there is established practice of at least trying to avoid bias in hiring processes, etc. The US is not creating an environment for you to thrive, so it is not unreasonable for you to seriously consider your options for going elsewhere.

Also on high alert, disabled people, whether physically or mentally or in ways that are not immediately visible. You are already marginalized, the Trump regime and project 2025 have made it clear they don’t give a shit about you, there is a real threat that your protections and rights may go away. That being said, again you are not under immediate and increased bodily threat to the same level as the higher categories. But you are not unreasonable for considering other countries where protections are less at risk.

Also on high alert, muslims. You are historically marginalized, existing in a christian nationalist state is not going to contribute to your thriving and will legitimize increased hatred and violence toward muslims. You may be a target because of your faith. You are not unreasonable for considering other countries where you can more openly practice your faith without fear of retribution.

And also on high alert, the LGBTQ community generally. There is active threat against the protection for same sex marriage that could significantly impact everything from how you pay your taxes to your rights over your children to your protection from work discrimination and more. Your bodily safety is not being targeted at the moment by actors in this regime but your rights certainly are. You are not unreasonable for considering other countries where your marriage and your family and your life is respected and protected. Or at the very least bluer states that provide greater protections.

Next category is the keep your eyes peeled category. These are people at heightened risk of being targeted for various reasons, but who aren’t actively at risk for their physical safety. You would advance to a higher risk category when news reports surface that people like you are being targeted for arrest or violence increases against you. You should keep an eye out for those reports, and be ready to start thinking about leaving if that risk increases. On this list we have Jewish people. In a Christian nationalist state Jews are used as pawns to claim “antisemitism” when deporting protestors, for example, but the reality is you are still an “other.” You come from a long history of marginalization, it is not unreasonable for you to be on alert for potential threats.

Also keep your eyes peeled to academics. You’re not being targeted for bodily harm yet, but your universities are under attack, your employment opportunities are dwindling, respect for your work is decreasing, you are not unreasonable for considering whether there are other countries that would value your work more or would allow for your full and complete intellectual freedom and debate.

Lawyers, you also need to keep your eyes peeled. Recently, an attorney representing pro-Palestinian protestors was detained at an airport in Michigan. He falls into other higher risk categories on this chart, but it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether his work played a role in his detention. Your places of employment are actively being targeted, whether you work at a large law firm, at a non profit that relies on government funds, or for the government itself and you’re not willing to fall in line. It is not unreasonable for you to consider whether your ability to freely practice your profession might be easier elsewhere.

Journalists and news commentators, ditto to you. Trump and his cronies have made it VERY clear that they are hostile to journalists who don’t fall in line. Your places of employment are actively being targeted for lawsuits, Trump is VERY willing to name and shame journalists on social media and elsewhere, which has led to credible threats against journalist lives if you fall into Trump’s crosshairs. There are no signs that journalists are being actively targeted by the regime such that their bodily safety is actively at risk, but it is not unreasonable to be keeping your eyes peeled for the first sign of more active crack down against journalists.

Known communists, you’re on the keep your eyes peeled list as well. We know that despite the fact that MAGA people don’t actually know what the definition of communism is, this country is not above actively targeting people on communist membership lists. That historic marginalization combined with this regimes open hostility against communists means that while you are not actively being targeted and your physical safety isn’t currently at risk, it is not unreasonable for you to be on alert and considering whether you might be able to openly express your political views somewhere else.

And then women, you are on the keep your eyes peeled list as well. Threats against our autonomy are not new to this regime, we’ve already seen our rights eroded through the end of Roe v. Wade, but this new regime is giving Ilead it’s giving Hand Maids Tale. There are active threats to our rights in the form of proposed changes to marriage laws that would get rid of no fault divorces as well as The Save Act, which Congress could vote on this week, which changes the voting rules and would require people to show proof of citizenship in order to vote. Showing proof of citizenship requires either a birth certificate or a passport, and many married women change their last name, so the name on their birth certificate doesn’t match their legal name. For women who don’t have a passport or ready access to their social security card, a notoriously fragile and tiny piece of basically tissue paper that you’re expected to keep safe and keep track of for your entire life, that creates a number of new barriers to voting. Not to mention the open disdain for women generally shown by this regime, their supreme leader has literally been found liable for sexual assault repeatedly, it is not unreasonable for you to consider whether existing as a woman might feel safer in another country, and to be on alert for any changes that might make you feel at risk.

Okay and finally we get to the you are fine category. You’re wanted, you’re safe, Donnie loves you, you are the preferred category of person, the purest of the pure, that the white christian nationalists want populating our great nation. If you’re white, if you’re a MAGA believer, if you BLEED RED WHITE AND BLUE BROTHER, if you’re a practicing Christian, congratulations you got nothing to worry about.

Okay, now, how to use this chart. Because again this is not meant to alarm you, it is meant as a tool to evaluate the actual risk you face with a clearer frame of reference. I’ll use myself as an example, because I find myself often spiraling when I read about infringements on the due process rights of immigrants, of people being detained by ICE off the street, it can make it feel like I am personally actively under threat right now at all times!!! So I’m a white cisgender bisexual woman who is a lawyer and a news commentator with 5 years of online evidence of my open disdain for the regime. The only one of those identities that puts me in the high alert category is that I am a member of the LGBTQ community. That being said, I’m married to a cis white man, so I move through the world UNDETECTED. Secret bisexual. I don’t consider that to put me in a high alert category because loss of rights won’t really affect me. So that means that, despite all my panic and fight or flight response, I’m at the bottom rungs of this alert graph. With the strong mitigating factor that I’m white. But there are a number of things that are strikes against me, namely being a woman who’s a lawyer and not a journalist but a public facing news commentator which often gets conflated with journalism and is probably just as bad in the eyes of this regime, and I’m not a communist but I’ve certainly frequently and with much fervor expressed very public dissent of this regime of which there is excessive public record. So I’m keeping my eyes peeled, okay. First sign of journalists being whisked away to El Salvador in the night or people having their citizenship revoked because they’re lawyers, I’m elevating myself to GET THE FUCK OUT and I’m LEAVING.

Since that is not the case at this point, taking a deep breath, I’m calming the fuck down, I’m staying put, I’m learning how to be more self sufficient, I’m fighting the good fight in whatever way I can.

Okay but this is of course little solace to those of you at the top of this list, and there’s not much I can say to you at this point, I’m not going to try to make you feel better I think that’s condescending in the face of very real threat. There is very little you can do to stop what’s happening at this point. If you have a country you can go back to, do that. But I know that’s not always an option. If you are a national of a country in Latin America, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Portugal, or a person of Sephardic origin, you can get citizenship in Spain after 2 years of residency. To gain residency in Spain for two years, you need a valid residency visa which comes in a number of forms: student visa, business visa to open a business in Spain, or digital nomad visa where you can work remotely in Spain. For those who aren’t nationals of the countries I listed, you can gain permanent residency in Spain if you are there as a legal temporary resident for five years, which is similar for a lot of European countries. The digital nomad visa in Spain is good for three years and then renewable for two more. A lot of educational programs can take 5 years especially if they are PhD programs. If you gain employment at a company in Spain or any other country frankly that will sponsor you, that’s another option.

Citizenship by descent is also possible in a number of countries around the world, including in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I am most familiar with citizenship by descent in Europe because, I mean, look at me, but I know that non-European countries offer it as well. Within Europe, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Luxembourg all come to mind as countries that offer citizenship by descent. If you are white and live in the upper midwest, the likelihood that you have a Luxembourgish ancestor is pretty high. Both of my grandparents had grandparents straight out of Luxembourg. Because of that, I actually obtained Luxembourgish citizenship last year. Like I’m telling you this shit is actually possible, people talk about leaving the US like it’s a pipe dream, and it’s certainly hard and not for the faint of heart and requires some money for sure, but it’s not impossible. The Netherlands has a great business visa where if you open a business there, and it could be just transferring your existing LLC to the Netherlands, you can obtain a visa to live there.

If you have a highly sought after profession, especially in tech, you can likely get in as a highly skilled immigrant. Most countries have that as an option and usually provide lists of professions that fall into that category. If I had no other or easier means of immigrating somewhere and an interest in a job change, I would look into applying to a European University to get a student visa, where I would study whatever highly sought after job exists in that country, and then would apply for a job after finishing my studies. There are numerous universities in Germany, Norway, Italy, and elsewhere that are low cost even for international students, offer student housing at reduced rates, and your healthcare would be free as well because the government would provide it to you. Plus you’ll be in Europe so you can also remove expenses for car payments, gas, and car insurance from your budget. For example, Nantes University, sorry I don’t speak French, in France has programs in English, has an enrollment fee of 175 euros, offers student housing for 600 euros per month, and you can get a monthly transit pass for about 60 euros per month, and health insurance is free. There are numerous other universities throughout Europe and probably elsewhere that make the option of going back to school incredibly affordable. And many visas have family reunification options if you have children. This information is all available to you on Google dot com.

Now of course every situation is different and nuanced, your decision to stay or leave will be influenced by so many factors, adding a family and children and pets to the equation makes everything so much more complicated. As a side note if you have a dog, check out the chartered animal travel Facebook group, bark air offers flights for dogs and they’re expensive for now but they’re working on expanding offerings and lowering costs, or you can sail from New York to Europe aboard the Queen Mary 2 with your dog on board, if you don’t want to fly with your dog in stowage under the plane, which is incredibly unsafe for flat faced dogs and cats!

And I can already see the Europeans in my comments–there are going to be a lot of people from other countries telling you they don’t want you to come there. The reality is that anti-immigrant sentiment is not unique to America. Every European will tell you their city is experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis. That is true everywhere in Europe and the US and elsewhere around the world. As a white person I’d rather take up space in the land where my people came from than gentrify a neighborhood in Mexico City, for example. It is hard to stay in the US under the current regime, it is also incredibly hard to leave, because everywhere is experiencing instability right now, and being an immigrant no matter how white you are is an incredibly difficult experience, made all the more difficult if you have additional intersecting identities. I have looked at and considered all possible factors and even with citizenship in Luxembourg and therefore the right to live anywhere in the EU, I’m still staying put for now, because I still exist with a lot of privilege, I am not being actively targeted and put in danger, I feel at home in my city in a way that I will not feel anywhere else in the world, and my family and oldest friends are here. Your considerations are going to be different. But I hope this discussion today has helped you maybe exit full blown panic mode and actually analyze the situation so you can make educated decisions about how to respond in the face of an increasingly violent autocratic regime. Leaving is difficult but it is an option, people do it every day. Staying is also an option especially for those of us who, contrary to that article from the New York Times saying we should ALL BE VERY VERY AFRAID, have relatively less to fear and would be more helpful if we weren’t in a constant state of fight or flight when rational decisionmaking becomes impossible. TAKE A DEEP BREATH. We are in this together. And for some people, it is not selfish or reactionary or an overreaction to decide to leave.

But also this list is really subjective, and I genuinely want to get a read on how people are feeling. Do you disagree with my assessment? Are you actively making plans to leave? Comment below.

And if you’d like to support my work, I recommend joining me over on Patreon where I launched the Why, America? Co-Learning Lab at the beginning of this year, a learning community having discussions and making connections, along with a monthly syllabus curated by me. All year we’ll be covering topics under the umbrella theme of “Eat the Rich: Building Solidarity in the New Gilded Age.” April’s topic is all about uncovering how fascism festered in America. This is all hosted over on Patreon, which is linked down below. If you’re interested, please join us. Patreon dot com slash leeja miller.

Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Marc, Thomas Orf, Sarah Shelby, Art, David, R_H, L’etranger (Lukus), Joshua Cole, Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you!

And if you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from Monday about this stupid tariff situation.

Leeja Miller
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