In case you haven’t heard, many media darlings have announced they intend to leave the United States and “move” to another country because they refuse to live under a Republican-dominated government. In their pure hypocritical fashion, the most vocal proponents of tolerance and acceptance cannot tolerate or accept how awesome America will be now that Trump has been elected President.
The latest example I came across was Ellen DeGeneres and her spouse Portia de Rossi announcing they are moving to the UK.
🔗: https://t.co/h8ib1gC5Hk
Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia De Rossi are dancing to a new home abroad. Click the link for the reason behind their move. (📷: Shutterstock) pic.twitter.com/w3hvzGfriJ— E! News (@enews) November 21, 2024
While most of the comments reverberate with sentiments of “Good Riddance,” and “BYE,” and “Probably on the Diddy list,” the first reaction I always have to this announcement is “HOW?”
I don’t think people realize how hard it is to just “move” to another country. We take for granted that the United States has one of the smoothest paths to citizenship and lenient immigration policies on the planet, and this was true even before Biden and Kamala completely opened the floodgates for illegal immigration.
Many people assume that it will be just as easy to move or immigrate to another country, but guess what, it’s not. At least not for regular people with real jobs – aka, non-celebrities.
Many countries will not offer a path to citizenship unless you are born to citizens of that country, or, in some cases, marry a citizen of that country.
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Take Ellen’s new home in the UK. To settle there or to become a citizen, there are a variety of paths. If you are born in the UK to British parents, you are a citizen. But, unlike the US, just being born in the UK does not guarantee citizenship. You can also marry a British citizen and, after three years of living there with indefinite leave to remain status, you may apply for citizenship. So, Ellen and Portia were not UK born, do not have UK parents, and while their marriage is legal in the UK as well as the US, neither are citizens.
What about work?
Many countries offer permanent residence via a work or student visa. Sometimes living there on a visa for an extended period of time also opens up a path to apply for settlement or citizenship. So, some questions for all the celebrities moving out of the USA: Are you going there on a work visa? What skilled labor do you have that the nation or a local employer needs?
The answer to both questions is likely “no.” They’re celebrities and actors. They are not providing any skilled labor. They’re not doctors saving lives or engineers building roads. There is no employer sponsoring them to do accounting work for $95,000 a year, nor are they so uniquely qualified in an area of scientific innovation as to be a viable candidate for a work visa.
In the UK, you can enter on one of several types of work visas and then declare your intention to settle and apply for an extension or even citizenship. Most require an offer or sponsorship by an employer, but some have no such requirement – such as the Graduate visa wherein a recent college graduate from a UK-based university can continue to live and work in the UK for a period of time. It would seem unlikely that any of these types of work-based visas would apply to Ellen and her many celebrity friends.
The idea that these celebrities are following the same rules to immigrate elsewhere that the rest of us would have to follow is laughable. So how are they doing it?
There is a visa that seems to have been made for immensely rich and famous celebrities alone. The ultimate cool kids’ lunch table. The Global Talent Visa. What the heck is that, you may be wondering? The Global Talent visa has been described as a “top shelf option” for emerging or established talent which allows “highly skilled people to relocate to the UK based on their merit and professional background, without any need for sponsorship by an employer.” Hmm…
So Ellen and Portia will be looking to be recognized as leaders in arts and entertainment on their application, which will likely pass, and then voilà, they can live permanently in the UK after as little as 3 years if they are still considered an “exceptional talent”. (It takes 5 years for permanent residence if you’re considered a “promising talent”. That’s not a joke.) This has to be the most ultimate privilege ever bestowed on anyone.
This is basically the golden ticket, and the UK is not the only country offering this. Our friendly neighbors to the north have similar immigration laws to the UK. In Canada, the Self Employed visa allows for highly qualified talent in the area of arts, culture, and athletics to obtain a visa if they can “get enough points in the program point system,” which I would expect means if they are rich and famous enough.
It doesn’t stop here, though. There is another golden ticket. In fact, it is even called the Golden Visa. Really! The Golden Visa is a path to permanent residency in Spain, where Eva Longoria says she is considering living. She’s also considering Mexico, but that is easy for her since she is married to a Mexican citizen.
If Eva and her husband Jose Baston want to live in Spain, all they have to do is commit to investing 500,000.00 Euros in property. Sound familiar Mr. Clooney? Italy runs the same deal. A typical buy-in for countries offering the Golden Visa may include investing hundreds of thousands in business start-ups or property, or donating millions to charitable causes in that country, or purchasing millions in government bonds. After purchasing your way to that visa, you can live there for a set number of years and maybe even apply for citizenship. But watch out Eva, if you want to be a citizen of Spain you have to renounce your US citizenship – not all countries are as flexible as the USA about dual citizenship.
The impetus for celebrities who are fearful of today’s America, the same one they miraculously lived in during Trump’s first presidency with great success, is that the United States is awful. That too many people and groups are still oppressed and held down in this country. They claim to have used their platforms to speak on behalf of these oppressed and impoverished souls.
Yet, they are going to use their extreme wealth and privilege to leave all of these people. They say they are going to run away from a country that has offered them the vast opportunity to become wealthy and famous and privileged in the name of equality. How can they not see that they are doing the most pompous and pretentious thing imaginable? That it is the peak of inequality? Their ability to move to another country is solely because of the success they have had in the United States. Their pathway to residency in another country is afforded only to the most aristocratic members of this world.
The fact is that it remains extremely difficult for almost all US citizens to just move away from this country, unless, of course, you are an egotistical, self-righteous, spoiled brat celebrity who can buy their way into another nation.
Ellen, Eva, and others – moving out of the United States of America is not a noble protest. It is a privileged uber-rich person’s temper tantrum.
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