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- cross-posted to:
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Last year the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: More people moved out than moved in. The Trump administration has hailed the exodus—negative net migration—as the fulfillment of its promise to ramp up deportations and restrict new visas. Beneath the stormy optics of that immigration crackdown, however, lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe.
Why would the rich leave? Don’t they benefit from Trumps policies like tax breaks and stuff? Or do you just mean the moderately ‘normal’ rich people with ‘only’ 6-figure incomes?
Because they can afford to escape the bedlam. Nobody wants to be in Minneapolis right now. Nevermind LA, Portland, or Charlotte.
If you’ve got enough money to put up in a hotel for a month or friendly relatives in another state to crash with, it sounds far preferable to dealing with ICE agents clogging your streets and ramming your car. Doubly so if you’re living in the US on a temporary or revocable permit. Who is holding a Student Visa or Green Card that feels safe in any of these cities right now? They’re snatching neuroscience students out of Columbia University student dorms, ffs.
The super-rich are right at home, yeah.