Should You Flee the United States?

have now to get out? The Trump administration is cracking down on a whole bunch of groups of already marginalized people, people with fewer resources, immigrants, people who are here for asylum, trans people, queer people in general. It's getting pretty scary out there, and the thought crosses your mind, maybe there's somewhere else that's better. And this has always been a tough question for us to kind of think about because

we don't want to like inspire panic. That's not the purpose of what we do here.

it's so it's a really tough question. Yeah, And I think what we're going to be doing this episode is just kind of talking about this question and our thoughts around you know, various responses to this line of thought, and I guess Robert kind of has a baseline like, kind of quasi answer that I think we can use as a jumping off point.

do it. You shouldn't feel bad about it. You know, if you've got a job that is in demand in other countries and you know the process and can get start the process to like get residency somewhere else and work somewhere else, and you know, make your life work that way, then I don't think you should feel bad about doing that. If that's what you decide is the right thing for you. That said, it's not, it's just simply not going to be a realistic possibility for most people.

What is more realistic for a lot of people is, for example, moving from states where the risk is higher to states where maybe the risk is lower. Hard to say how long the risk will be lower, you know, but I, you know, I certainly that's more achievable for a lot of people than getting set up in a foreign country, as James will talk about, if your hope is just I'm going to try to go somewhere else

like Europe or whatever as an asylum seeker. As again, James will go into more detail on life ain't easy for asylum seekers and that's not really Again, it may not be nearly as much of an option as you think that it is right now. I you know, had to go through kind of my own process after the election of like, well, am I going to like, you know, get my finances in order and move to another country and basically try to like pay my way into getting a visa somewhere like in Spain, which is an option

for someone like me. And I came to the conclusion that like, nah, you know, if the worst case thing happens, I'd rather like die here or whatever. It's just not worth it, you know, to try to get out. So I'm committing to trying to like hold the line here with everybody basically that I love in the world, because like what else are you going to do? You know?

the more high value passports in the world. You can you can go almost anywhere with a visa or in many cases without a visa. Seeking asylum is an extremely

different process. If you think you're just going to get on a flight and leave and stay somewhere, like understand that many countries will probably begin to require reciprocal visas with the United States soon if we continue our current sort of pathway with a more isolationist immigration policy, and then you'll have to get that visa, and then you know, if you overstay, you will be subject to enforcement. The sense of permanence that you enjoy here might never be

something you enjoy again. And that's just if you're able to fly somewhere and so you try and overstay a visa or you try and apply for asylum. I have people I've met in every facet of my life, like I know guys who I met as a bike racer who have applied for asylum. Guys I met a bike racer are staying on that barge in the UK. It is a miserable fate. And I think that I'm not

saying don't do it. I'm saying that you need to understand that it is highly unpleasant and it tripped you of all dignity, and in some places exists people of of like their lives. Right, people die migrating. It's also like incredibly expensive to do the things that migrants do because that everyone is trying to make a buck off them. Right.

I was just talking on another podcast about how the journey that people took up through the Darien Gap who tried to come to the United States, it would have cost them way less just to fly, but they couldn't. They couldn't get the visas. Right. That doesn't mean like if you know, if you have a historical right to citizenship through various you know, people have rights to Spanish citizenship or German citizenship or Irish. Irish is one that many people have access to. You, Yeah, why not? Why not?

You know, if you have the financial resources, we're not try and see where that will go. Why not begin pursuing that totally?

here are not willing to leave their home. This is their home and it always will be and they're going to stay and fight for it even as things get you know, harder, And I don't think you should write these people off. I don't think you should write these places off. These these places are still a terrain of battle, and there are going to be places where trans people can still live and still live fulfilling lives in many cases. And that is that it's worth acknowledging, that's worth putting

effort into. To the point that, like after the election, I was already considering maybe, you know, trying to travel around the country some more. And after this last election, my line of thought was way more on the side of I would actually like to spend as much time in Georgia as possible. I would actually want to stay in this South for as much as I can, because this is like not a place that I think people

should be walking away from. And in some ways that does come from like a slightly privileged point of view for multiple reasons, as someone who's white and holds a Canadian passport as well as an American passport. That is, you know, something that I like to have as a back pocket option. But that's something I'm not like considering like at all. Like I do not want to move to Canada. All my friends are here, my life is here. There's certain scenarios where things get much much, much worse,

even though things are already getting quite bad. But there are certain scenarios where yes, that passport will come in handy, And that's why I do encourage like, no matter what you should you should see if you have any options to become a citizen in more than one country. It is a great thing to be. It's it's good to not be just tied down to one place. But the process of trying to to you know, immigrate somewhere where you do not have a citizenship is already quite challenging.

And we will probably discuss some some more of this later because I think there's also a sort of like onion of a threat of people when you're when you're thinking of this question like which people will will be or are currently being targeted the most, and how that kind of affects the options in terms of like relocation to places viewed as like safer havens. And I like to jumpstart that onion of protect discussion. After these messages, we're.

those rights like stripped away. I'm trying to think of like the list of refugees that were allowed under Biden that are now like like imminently going to get their stuff stripped away from the Trump administration. I know Venezuelan, Yeah, I know, you run. Haitian immigrants are another off god, but groups that have that have been able to come here the past few years that are going to be now seen as like quote unquote illegal by the White

House and Immigration Customs Enforcement. You then have student visa holders which are already like currently under threat getting visas taken away. You have people on work visas. You have Green card holders, and you even have naturalized citizens and among just regular citizens, a naturalists, I guess people that were born here. You have other factors that could lead to potential hardship. Based on political affiliation or based on gender and sexuality, And that's kind of like the bracket

breakdown I'm working off of. So as much as it's like dangerous to be like, you know, like a trans anarchist right in the United States, I think that is that is fairly different than a Haitian immigrant who's about to get like, yeah, literally hunted down by ice, right, And these people have wildly different realities, wildly different options for how they're going to like handle this question and handle like the decision of you know, preemptively choosing to

relocate somewhere else. James, do you have any kind of thoughts on this like onion? I guess yeah.

nineteen ninety four in Operation Gatekeeper. Maybe we go back further whatever, I don't care. Maybe we'd go back to the operation whose name is also a slur in the nineteen thirties. And I'm not going to say I.

to exist for a very long time. And like, the way that they have got through this is together, and that's the way that we will get through this too. When there have been threats to migrant communities, migrant communities have shown up for each other, right, they're doing that right now. You see groups like Del Barrio in San Diego, right like going around announcing when there are ice presence

of ICE officers in the neighborhood. The way that they have gone through it is through other people in positions of procarity, showing up for one another and taking care of one another. And if that is a new position for you, if finding yourself like further along the intersectional matrix of oppression is new for you, then like it's scary. I do understand that that procurity is petrifying, but understand that communities and people have been here for a long

time and look at how they've got through it. And in queer communities too to a degree, have been persecuted in this country for a very long time and have developed ways of not just like existing, but also like continuing to center joy and experience joy and not just like live in fear, because I think if you live in fear, like you've kind of given up to a degree,

Oh you've let them win. To agree, I should say, like, I do understand that being new to this is petrifying for people, and like I don't want to just say like, oh, you shouldn't be scared, or you know, you should look at at how migrant communities have taken care of one another, but like now is the time to begin establishing solidarity

as well. So like those communities which have been precarious for some time, they're not closed spaces, right, Like you can be in solidarity with them and you can learn from them, And I think that now is the time to do that. Like, now is the time to build stronger links. If you're really worried about things being really bad in this country and you have good reason to be right, like.

you should have already been doing. Frankly, like I've been advocating for people to get passports, including an American passport, because that doesn't make it easier to leave the country. You should be getting that, and it's going to be harder, especially if you're trends now, to get a passport that matches what you look like, right, But this is still something I think is worth doing because it gives you an option, and you should be increasing the amount of options you have.

he was like, whatever we do, we do together. And I thought that was very profound because they were at that time like dancing around a fire in the midst of what was like an open air concentration camp. You know, but if you can find a community and you can find a way to continue to experience joy, then I promise that things won't be as bad as they seem right now.

we've spoken to in right. They decided to remain rather than to leave, and in doing so that they created a culture that was based on resistance and that resisted the ability of the state to exercise a monopoly on violence and to determine their outcomes. And I think we should look to those examples as we consider, like, what does it mean if the state becomes more hostile.

like consider. If you do not already have pre existing plans and means, maybe it's not something to put all of your effort into doing right now, because that is such a massive undertaking in general, and and not everyone has that option, and there's to be people stuck here, and you know, part of like my thinking on this is is like I'm in a relatively privileged position. I would rather use the sort of benefits and the stability that I have to help other people that are going

to be living in this country. So I'm going to stay here to do that. And that's part of kind of my thought process. On a personal level, do I, you know, one day maybe one to live off the continent. Yeah, but that's like for personal reasons, not for political reasons. That that's because I think Glasgow looks pretty. And if you also think Glasgow is pretty and you want to

move there, then that's fine. But I guess, like the politics of escape, I do find a little bit troubling in some ways, and I guess I would like to talk about that a little bit more after this at break.

can look at the AfD in Germany. But some of what's happened with this Trump administration has almost weakened a degree of like this global far right power grab. Like for a long time it looked like the Conservative Party of Canada was about to just completely take control over the whole over the whole country due to like be

pent up frustration over Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party. And now due to the actions of the Trump administration, the Liberals have retaken a significant portion of like popular support and are probably gonna do a big sweep in the general election. That's going to happen, I'm guessing next month with the new Prime Minister like about about to call one, which makes sense because he should call one at the at

the peak of support for the Liberal Party. Yeah, after the Conservatives have taken like a twelve to seventeen point depth depending which pool you use. So for a while I was like, it doesn't even really make sense to flee to Canada because Canada is right on the coattails of America. Canadian politics are kind of historically but like ten years delayed from American politics, and now the new drum administration is kind of thrown a curveball in this.

British politics are always really hard for me to diagnose because all of their parties there are pretty wacky in my mind. Oh, like, you know, what the Tories have been doing has been extremely worrying. Like the NHS, like trans stuff is pretty bad. Now that the you know, Labor Party is in, it's hard for me to figure out kind of where the country is going because this Labor Party is a pretty conservative labor party. But like this idea of like being able to outrun American fascism

is still something I find like unconvincing. I guess, like you can't fully run away from all of these problems, and there may be certain people that it's still like makes sense to start making these moves just to start planning for that option, right, I am pro options, even if this idea of like total escape still find trouble. Yeah, and anyone else making a kind of thoughts on this on this saw.

to Canada. Frankly, yeah, I not. I'm not as familiar with the Canadian.

our stories. Fuck off, if I may say so, But like, yeah, we've all grown up on the stories of people who stood up for what they believed in, right, And Margaret makes a whole podcast about it, and Robert does on Christmases yep, and like there's a reason why they did that, Like you know they I know that the idea of running away and being safe could be tempting, But like, if this country gets as bad as it needs to be for people to run away in large number, it's

like the world gets markedly less safe. Oh yeah, you're going to be running for the rest of your life.

a considerable financial investment. So instead, part of what my opposition to this is that you're essentially abandoning a whole bunch of like the like most at risk people. Yea, A part of this even extends out to like moving from state to state. I'm obviously in support of free movement. I've traveled around, and I'm going to continue to travel around. I want to see as much as the country in

the world as I can. But like another facet of this politics of escape is that something I hear very consistently from my my friends in Atlanta, And this is something I can attest to, like personally, the most amount of like like local transphobia from people like on the street that they have faced has not been in Atlanta where they live. It's been when they're visiting people in Seattle or Portland. Like you actually get a lot more like weird anti queer harassment in Seattle, just just like

on like the street level. It's bizarre, Like cities all have different kind of like modes of operation. People have different like informal like manners in terms of how how you like behave on the street. And it's it's it is. This is something that I've definitely actually I've definitely experienced.

There's there's a lot more like open openness towards like certain types of of like anti trans harassment in like these like liberal safe havens like quote unquote, yeah, I've been called slurs on the street way more in Portland,

Oregon than I have in Atlanta, Georgia. And this is this is another like interesting aspect which I'm not saying Atlanta is quote unquote safer city than Seattle if you're trans I'm not saying the vice versa either, But this is like just an aspect of like the politics of escape, like especially in the in the United States, like they're there, like is really no like real escape, like there there is no mythical safe haven where you can live your

your free life and frolics through the park and never have to face any kind of hardship or like political disenfranchisement. If you still want to relocate somewhere, that's something that you should consider and again create options. But I also do not want to like abandon my friends here because I just you know, have a more stable job, Like I I want to be here for them and and help them and not in like a patronizing way, but in like a solidarity way. Like that's like really important

to me. And I think of people who are who are thinking about these same things and kind of running these same questions of of if they want to commit a sting in the United States, I think should also make those considerations of is like you know which which one of your friends is not going to be able

to make the same calculation. Yep, And frankly, I feel I feel like better as a person and like my mental health feels better knowing I'm gonna be here with them rather than going to a Berlin nightclub, which does sound fun. And I still might on vacation.

there for the funeral. That means that when they have a grandchild, they have a niece or a nephew, something happens in their community and they want to be there to help. It's a natural disaster. They are just stuck. And that's not something to like to discount as something

that's not important, Like that is really hard. And if you have a community now, especially for trans folks, right, Like I just think that, like there are so many places where, like you say, Garrison, where bigotry against transfolks

is being more and more normalized. So like, if you have a community where people where you're experiencing every day with the people you're around, like leaving that should be something that you really think hard about because that can be hard to find yeah, yeah, expecting in Edinburgh because they're old turfs with the in the cafes.

of low key been one of these places. Especially if we're going to go to war with Canada to make it the fifty first state, then it might also uh create create some some some tricky aspects.