Have your friends/families taken the current situation and you seriously?

[coldtea]

8. At first, No. Now - Everyone's moving abroad

At first everyone I knew including my family was like yours. Stop stressing about it. The boogeyman isn't coming for you. Even if something does happen, it won't be immediate. Etc Etc. They slowly changed their tune and began making backup plans. Those backup plans slowly turned into serious plans. It's at the point where my family has a bugout plan in case we need to flee to the Canadian border within 24 hours without Google Maps. We also have a plan for if Mr. T. cuts our healthcare and we have to start paying for meds out of pocket.

Now all my friends and family, including elderly couples, are talking about moving abroad. And they're getting less picky about where they go and how they get there, too.

- One retired couple bought land in and moved to Columbia, because they couldn't get a visa to Europe. They've having a fantastic time.
- One neighbor was originally from Canada, had been living in the US for over 20 years, and moved back to Canada.
- Several people are getting citizenship or permanent residency by descent, to countries like Canada, Ukraine, Germany, Croatia and Italy. Unfortunately this is a process that usually takes quite a while, and in some cases (Italy) takes a few thousand dollars. The main holdup is that some states and counties are taking over 7 months to issue certified copies of vital records, and the federal gov is currently sometimes taking up to 3 months to issue federal apostilles. As a comparison, in January 2025, the feds were only taking 4 weeks to issue federal apostilles.
- People are rethinking their careers and looking into if they can somehow get a work visa, and if not, if they can either manage a student visa or change jobs.

Interestingly enough, our family and friends have come together a lot more over all this. We are all genuinely helping each other out with stuff like rent (several family members lost their jobs directly due to Mr. T. pulling funding) and many other things. We're talking about buying a family use condo in Europe or Canada and stuff like that. Even divorced and re-married people are helping their ex-spouses out. It really hit me how a lot of people have no savings and no way out, and will only be able to get out if they have serious help from others.