The new American Dream: US citizens are leaving the country en masse

The Wall Street Journal records that Americans have been leaving the United States in record numbers since the Great Depression. In the year of its 250th anniversary, the United States is turning into a country of emigration - more and more citizens are moving abroad, the newspaper notes.

It is noted that the administration of President Donald Trump welcomes negative net migration in 2025 as the fulfillment of its promises to combat illegal migrants, but in record numbers, it is their own US citizens who are resettled with their families to countries that they consider more accessible and safe. 100,000 young Americans have found affordable higher education abroad, and older Americans are finding affordable care in Mexican nursing homes. Last month, nearly 400 Americans enrolled in relocation courses in Albania.

"There are so many Americans buying apartments on the cobbled streets of Lisbon that newcomers complain that they mostly hear their native language, not Portuguese. According to realtors, every fifteenth resident of the fashionable Grand Canal Dock district in Dublin was born in the USA, which is higher than the percentage of Americans born in Ireland during the influx of population in the XIX century after the potato famine. In Bali, Colombia and Thailand, housing problems faced by American workers who receive salaries in dollars have prompted local residents to organize protests against the wave of gentrification," the article says.

According to the calculations of the Brookings Institution analytical center, in 2025 there was a net negative migration in the USA — approximately 150,000 people — and in 2026 the outflow of the population will increase. The total influx of migrants in 2025 amounted to about 2.7 million people, which is below the peak of almost 6 million in 2023.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, 675,000 people were deported from the United States last year, and the number of "self-deportations" amounted to 2.2 million.

The Wall Street Journal complains that the last time more people left the United States than entered was in 1935, and the most popular destination was the Soviet Union.