How hard is it for an American to just up and move to a great country? People always say "if you don't like it, move" but is it really that easy? I've heard its really hard unless you have family to move to a great country. It'd be cool if we could pool information about how to obtain citizenship in of the better countries.

7/25/2011 6:57:55 PM

you could always move to New Freeland

7/25/2011 7:01:02 PM

Biafra is nice this time of year.

7/25/2011 7:03:54 PM

It's pretty hard to immigrate and helps if you have things like (in the country of immigration):
-a job
-a relative or spouse
-are a student at a university

Et cetera, more factors, and you know, the actual legal information.

7/25/2011 7:08:37 PM

I'm waiting for someone to harness together and colonize the massive Pacific Ocean trash flows

7/25/2011 7:09:53 PM

Quote :

"TO IMMIGRATE TO"

7/25/2011 7:11:13 PM

You'd think the OP would know to emigrate upon exiting the USSA.

7/25/2011 7:13:37 PM

Dominican Republic

7/25/2011 7:27:51 PM

Norway, duh.

7/25/2011 7:40:05 PM

First, America is the best county. Second, they wouldn't take you.

7/25/2011 7:40:14 PM

Are you really free if you have to ask permission to leave?

If you're badass enough, you don't have to leave. You can just stay on your land and the cops will say "fuck it leave the guy alone"...for 12 years at least.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7576723.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtkK9pWWOlQ

[Edited on July 25, 2011 at 7:57 PM. Reason : .]

7/25/2011 7:44:41 PM

emigrate, goddammit.

[Edited on July 25, 2011 at 7:46 PM. Reason : ^ nobody is saying that it's hard to leave. they're saying it's hard to get good places to take you]

7/25/2011 7:45:13 PM

I wonder this same thing - just out of curiosity.

What if I wanted to just move to the United Kingdom and "start all over"?

Or what if someone wanted to try to escape debt/credit/life by running to another country?

Or what if someone thought that London was exactly like Guy Ritchie leads us to believe, and thus wanted to become the next Bullet Tooth Tony?

Hm..

7/25/2011 7:58:38 PM

i wonder how valuable our universities' degrees are over there (U.K./Germany/etc)

7/25/2011 8:00:55 PM

I'm no expert, but I think it would be much easier to go to a country with brown folks.

7/25/2011 8:01:38 PM

I'd probably go to sweden.

7/25/2011 8:20:39 PM

Sweden is both very cold and very white. Also very expensive.

7/25/2011 8:24:24 PM

I think Germany would be fun, even though I've never been

I'd like to drive fast

7/25/2011 8:25:02 PM

Quote :

"How hard is it for an American to just up and move to a great country? People always say "if you don't like it, move" but is it really that easy? I've heard its really hard unless you have family to move to a great country. It'd be cool if we could pool information about how to obtain citizenship in of the better countries."

The catch is there is no great country to go to. By saying "if you don't like it, move" you're supposed to realize you have it better than all the other countries already and that you have no room to complain, when in reality, it's okay to complain, and a country can always be better, they just don't wanna hear it.

7/25/2011 8:26:15 PM

Suisse

7/25/2011 8:28:05 PM

Norway

7/25/2011 8:29:08 PM

germany

i would like to go to graduate school there

7/25/2011 8:32:27 PM

America has the most liberal immigration policy in the developed world

and it's more liberal than most of the developing world too

7/25/2011 8:38:42 PM

Quote :

"i wonder how valuable our universities' degrees are over there (U.K./Germany/etc)"

Pretty valuable, I'm looking at some schools overseas and have a number of friends overseas who have earned degrees or gotten jobs. I have a friend who got his Masters in the UK (Edinburgh) and is now headed to Germany to get his PhD after he didn't get through the doctoral admissions with his UK school. Cool thing about Germany is that it's free.

7/25/2011 8:42:54 PM

most of them are awesome but i hate the cold. Australia seems cool. Ireland and UK are also an option. Vancouver is win I guess.

7/26/2011 2:16:17 AM

You could sneak into Mexico

7/26/2011 5:40:54 AM

you people...

America, %&@€ yeah!

(note the clever use of the euro symbol)

7/26/2011 7:48:38 AM

i would move to switzerland, germany, denmark, or any of the scandinavian countries

7/26/2011 7:55:50 AM

I've heard it's incredibly difficult to emigrate to Australia.

7/26/2011 8:56:46 AM

Quote :

"I'd probably go to sweden"

Sweden would likely be one of the easier countries to emigrate to legally. They make it very easy to get the benefits of marriage (including residence permits) without actually being married simply by going to the tax office and registering yourself and a gf/bf as "sambo". Due to EU regulations, this significant other doesn't even have to be swedish, the simply have to be a citizen of an EU country.


Ireland is another option if you have a grandparent that was an irish citizen. This entitles you to register for Irish citizenship which in turn opens the door to Ireland and the rest of Europe.

7/26/2011 9:10:51 AM

^I've thought about looking into that as my grandfather was an Irish citizen. In fact b/c of that several of my aunts and uncles have Irish passports.

7/26/2011 9:18:25 AM

Quote :

"Dominican Republic"

I did that for 2 years, obviously didn't stay though. Turns out I liked the following more than previously thought: wall to wall carpet, reliable running water that you could drink right out of the tap, and electric service that's better than the electric service you get off Kaplan.

7/26/2011 10:44:31 AM

Quote :

"emigrate, goddammit."

Thanks.



--

The E Man I suggest you emigrate to Kandahar, Afghanistan in an Uncle Sam suit.

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 10:45 AM. Reason : .]

7/26/2011 10:45:36 AM

Move to Hawaii and pretend it's another country. Or Guam.

Canada is harder to move to than you think. You need a job before you go, and why would they hire you when they could hire a perfectly good Canadian who is already there and they wouldn't have to worry about getting a visa? They have a slightly better job market right now, but unless you have a very rare advanced degree, you'll need to get married. You have to go somewhere desperate for population to tax to support the boomers. Italy isn't growing fast enough. Maybe you could get in there if you could become fluent in Italian?

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 10:50 AM. Reason : xx]

7/26/2011 10:47:34 AM

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 10:48 AM. Reason : ]

7/26/2011 10:47:52 AM

And when you get there to New Freeland, you can participate in the Independent Nations Games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBsRvdHJUDk

7/26/2011 10:51:52 AM

Quote :

"America has the most liberal immigration policy in the developed world"

does it? do you have anything to prove that?

uk, canada, australia, and new zealand have a points system under which 10s of millions of professionals from around the world (doctors, engineers, professors, teachers, businessmen, managers, accountants, IT, etc) can easily emigrate to those countries.

7/26/2011 11:12:05 AM

Yeah, def going to have to disagree with the quoted statement.

7/26/2011 11:34:11 AM

I've looked into emigrating to Canada for professional reasons (I work in one of these special fields: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who-instructions.asp#list, and U Totonto has a graduate program that is one of the continent's best), but you also have to worry about provincial barriers. Also, even if you work in one of those special areas, they still have a cap on accepted applications. It's 10,000 a year (unless you have employment already), so get your app in early.

Then again, I'd hope you'd have a job set up before you go.

The provincial restrictions are what I found the hardest. Look for a province with a low unemployment rate. Problem is, those provinces mostly suck. You'll have a harder time getting into BC or Ontario than Alberta.

In the end, I've decided to stay here and just move somewhere that seems like another country, like Hawaii or Vermont or Guam.

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 12:07 PM. Reason : x]

7/26/2011 11:57:46 AM

the provincial selection is trivial if you already have worked a few years, have education, and speak an official language.


I'd be scared that they would revoke that visa if you applied for grad school within 1 or two years and accuse you of entering canada under false intentions. the 10,000 special visas are for permanent visas, while canada already admits 200,000 skilled workers per year with temporary 1 or 2 year work visas. they have to work 3 years in canada before they can apply for a permanent visa. You have to find an offer of employment beforehand for this visa, and then your employer has to work with immigration to get the visa, and i think they have to notify them when you leave.
There's a category of NAFTA skilled workers that i think can get temporary visas without a specific offer of employment.

A student visa is very easy to get once you are accepted to a program, and once the program is completed getting a "canadian experience class" permanent visa is a breeze.

Another kind of visa that is relatively easy to get is a "familial regroupment" visa. if you have family, even extended family like a cousin, aunt/uncle or niece/nephew in canada, they can sponsor you for a permanent visa without you having an offer of employment, schooling or in fact too many skillz at all.

7/26/2011 12:40:37 PM

many places are very difficult to immigrate to.

take mexico for example. if you lefties think US immigration laws/proposed laws are so bad, then check out mexico's laws. sheesh

7/26/2011 1:26:41 PM

yeah, but that problem solves itself since nobody actually wants to move there haha

7/26/2011 1:29:10 PM

haha

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 1:40 PM. Reason : .]

7/26/2011 1:40:04 PM

missed it

7/26/2011 1:43:07 PM

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 9:47 PM. Reason : .]

7/26/2011 9:47:10 PM

Damn you, I was just coming in here to post that.

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 9:52 PM. Reason : And did you know your window tab has **** ****'s name in it? ]

7/26/2011 9:50:31 PM

7/26/2011 9:52:22 PM

Mexico's policies are a hopeful deterrent since there is no other way for them to try and stop Central Americans from walking right in.

7/26/2011 9:57:27 PM

barbados, but without a wife, job, or cash bribe, you aren't getting a visa

7/26/2011 10:01:31 PM

Quote :

"Sweden is both very cold and very white. Also very expensive."

Actually except for in the most northern regions the weather is pretty temperate. Most of the larger cities worth living in (stockholm, Gothenburg) are more south.

7/26/2011 10:04:12 PM