hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2577.txt

Episode: 2577
Title: HPR2577: Emigration
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2577/hpr2577.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 05:59:24

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This is HPR episode 2,577 entitled Emidation.
It is hosted by Klaatu and in about 31 minutes long and Karimaklin flag.
The summary is how to emidrate.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthos.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
That's HPR15.
It's a better web hosting that's honest and fair at Ananasthos.com.
Oh hi everybody.
My name is Klaatu.
I was just listening to the National Anthem of the United States of America for fun as I do.
And in this episode of Hacker Public Radio, I want to talk about immigrating.
That is leaving a country.
So that's immigrating within E, not within I.
One thing I've learned, having immigrated from one country to another and immigrating to another.
I've learned that immigration is a really complex topic.
There are lots of different countries that you might want to leave.
And there are lots of different countries to which you may want to go.
The weird thing is that not everyone wants you to leave and not everyone wants you to go into their country.
So it's sort of weird because you feel like, well, I was born here, but I don't want to necessarily live here.
So where could I go?
That's up in the air.
You may not have any place to go.
There may be no country on the planet that wants you in their quarters within their land, including your birthplace.
But they're kind of obligated, I guess, to have you unless you do something really crazy.
But that's not really immigration.
That's deportation or something.
So anyway, if you want to leave a country and go to another country,
there are a couple of different qualifications that you are expected to have.
One of those things is, I guess probably the easy way is a lot of money.
If you have a lot of money, there are probably very few countries on this planet that would not love to have you.
They all generally, at least from my research,
they all generally are quite excited to have people who have a lot of money come into their country.
And they will sometimes, I mean, it's kind of a sliding scale.
If you just have a little bit of a lot of money,
then they might take you on the promise,
kind of the assurance that you are self-sufficient.
Like you are not going to maybe work in the country,
but so you're not stealing anyone's job,
but you are also not going to leech off of the country's resources.
That is to say, you are by flashing like you're a little bit of a lot of money.
You are promising that country, that country's government,
that you are going to pay handsomely for anything that you take within their country.
Like if you go to a restaurant and order a submarine sandwich, a hogey,
and you eat that hogey, you are going to pay for that hogey.
So you are not taking a hogey from anyone.
You are not taking a job making that hogey from anyone.
You are just self-sufficient, you are rich, you are okay.
And I think I get the impression that that's more or less a zero sum
for the government of any country.
It's like you are not really contributing anything to their country maybe,
but you are also not taking anything from it.
So you are just sort of existing.
Now there is a little bit of a risk there,
because what if you get really, really sick or something?
But I mean, again, they are assuming you are rich.
You are rich enough to take care of your own problems.
And that's what they want to see in a person coming into the country.
Or that's one of the things that they want to see.
Another way is to have a lot of money.
So if you are super rich, then they may see you as a gain for their country.
They might see you as sort of a benefit.
Like they are almost, they are leaching you from your home country,
because you have so much money.
And they think in their minds, they figure that if they let you in,
you will not only pay handsomely for your hogies,
you will certainly not steal a job because you don't work, because you're rich.
And you will also be able to maybe invest here and there.
Like you might throw money around.
Like you might go to a local business, say, hey, I like what you're doing.
Here's a million bucks.
And that's great for the country's inhabitants.
It's great for the country's economy.
And so they are very friendly to that sort of thing.
This includes, for instance, investments.
Like, so if you go into a country and you decide, well, I have a lot of money.
I have a lot of a lot of money.
And I'm going to maybe purchase a house.
Then you can purchase a house.
They will gladly take your money, whether you live there or not frequently.
Not all the time, but a lot of times they will let you buy a house,
whether you live in the country or not.
And they won't really mind.
And then you could rent that house to someone.
And you could make money off of people in that country.
Or you could live in that house yourself.
There's a lot of flexibility there.
So I mean, hey, look, if you've got a lot of money,
you're not listening to me drone on about how to immigrate from a country, right?
And you've got all that figured out already.
You're used to this sort of thing.
You've got a lot of money.
You do whatever you want.
You don't really take it for, you don't actually ask the question first.
You assume that you can do it.
And you're right.
So congratulations.
So OK, so assuming that you're not independently wealthy enough to just
waltz into any country and have them invite you in because of your bank account,
then there are other things that they kind of expect you to have
if you're coming into a country.
And again, this is all from just my personal experience and research.
So there may be edge cases.
There might be exceptions.
Like I say, there are a lot of countries on this planet.
And a lot of them have completely different rules and regulations.
Like getting into, for instance, New Zealand is different than getting into,
say, Switzerland, which is different than getting into Taiwan.
Or France, whatever.
I mean, really, you can pretty much just look at any country and assume
that that's going to be different.
So one of the things that you can typically count on is that a country
does not want to take in someone who is a liability.
And that's kind of, if you think about it is kind of obvious.
Like if you're thinking of a country as kind of a business,
then that's basically what an economy is, right?
It's a big business scheme.
It's like an economy.
That is what it is.
So if you're going in there and you're saying,
look, I have no money, I am very sick.
And I'm just kind of hoping that you're going to be able to pay for me to eat
and for hospital bills.
Then there are really, really not going to want you.
And that's something that is just true almost no matter what.
I don't know of a country that really is okay with bringing people in
that they see as a liability.
So they expect you to be able to sort of support yourself.
And that doesn't mean that you need to be self-sufficient.
It just means that you need to be able to support yourself.
However, and quite, quite contrary to that,
they do not want you necessarily stealing a job
away from one of their native born inhabitants.
Because to them, that is a liability in itself.
Because if you take a job that someone in that country
who was born in that country would have taken, hadn't you taken it,
then to them, they see that as kind of a hit against their sort of natural
organic economy.
So the ticket is to look at the country that you want to immigrate to
and look on their immigration site.
They usually have some kind of immigration presence online,
like an immigration, you know, immigrate to such and such.
So you look at their immigration site
and you look at some of their documentation
and there's usually some kind of list of skills that they feel
are desirable in that country.
And that will differ from country to country.
So some countries may be in very real need of educators,
for instance, maybe they're just for whatever reason,
they're not retaining people who are growing up in the country
and getting, they're going to school,
they're getting that teaching degree or whatever.
And instead of staying in the country
to teach the children of that country, they're leaving.
They're going to some other country to teach children somewhere else,
maybe because they're bored in their own country,
maybe because they don't feel safe in their country.
I don't know, whatever drives people away from their homeland,
people are leaving.
So, or maybe just no one in that country for whatever reason,
nobody is taking a teaching degree.
There's no, maybe there's a perception that that's not a worthy cause
or it's not what you do or it's not a paying gig.
You know, it doesn't pay enough,
so people just aren't doing it.
Either way, there's a shortage of this thing
and in my example, I'm saying educators.
So, maybe in the case of that,
you might be able to get into a country,
into another country, because they need what you have.
So, for instance, if you're a teacher and you look at a country
and they say, hey, look, we really need teachers.
Just apply, we will probably take you.
So, as long as you are reasonably healthy
and can demonstrate that you're reasonably responsible.
Like, I went to school, I paid some bills,
and I intend to work in your school system.
Then they'll take you.
They will give you what is called a visa, V-I-S-A.
That is not the same thing as a credit card.
It is a kind of a piece of paper
that you get pasted into your passport.
And this visa explains to people at the border
what you are allowed to do in that country.
And so, there are several different varieties of visas.
So, there are visitor visas or holiday visas sometimes,
where the expectation is that you're going to go into that country
and spend maybe a week or two weeks, maybe a month,
just kind of hanging out, going to hotels, paying for rooms.
Maybe you're just backpacking
and you're gonna stay in a youth hostel.
They don't like that as much typically,
but whatever, you've got permission
to go into the country and visit.
And it is the expectation that you are visiting.
Maybe you're spending money, maybe you're not.
It doesn't technically matter,
but there is an expectation that you're going to go in,
you're going to visit, you're going to,
in some way, stimulate the economy.
Whether it's in little ways, like, yeah, you're gonna be camping
or big ways, like you're a big spender.
You're gonna buy trophies and not trophies,
souvenirs and things like that.
And you're gonna go on tours
and you're gonna spend lots of money.
Whatever.
It's a visitor's visa, it's pretty common.
So, that's the, and there is the expectation there
that you have the money then to leave.
So, if it's a nation where you have to get to it
by flying from your homeland,
then there is an expectation that after that period of visitation,
you will also have the money to get on a plane
and fly away to back to your homeland.
So, and they will check that sort of thing too.
Like, I mean, if they, if they have reason to believe
that you are going in and out of the country very frequently
and they're not really sure why you're doing that,
they will, they will look into that sort of thing
from what I've heard has never happened to me,
but that's, that's what I've heard.
So, so there's a visitor's visa,
but there's also other kinds of visas.
There's like a, a work visa,
which gives you permission to get a job there.
So, if you don't have a work visa
or a work condition on your visa, whatever visa you have,
then you are not allowed to get a job,
but if you target a country and say, okay,
I want to move there, I've looked at their skill list,
their skill shortage list,
and it has listed a skill that I have.
So, maybe it's you're an educator,
maybe you're a computer scientist,
maybe you're something else.
Then you can go to that,
you can contact that country,
you know, some place in that country and say,
hey, look, I've, I've got this skill
and I know that you're hiring.
I mean, you don't like contact the country.
You have to identify a place in that country,
like at a company or an institution in that company,
in that country that needs the skill
for which you are applying and you apply for that
and the likelihood of you getting that position
is as strong as you are at getting yourself hired.
But then the permission to take that job
and to move to that country and to live in that country
and work in that country,
that is something that the government provides.
And sometimes the place in the country
that you are contacting and getting a job at,
sometimes they'll intervene for you.
You know, they'll go to the government,
file some paperwork, be like, look, this person,
we're hiring this person and they're on the skill shortage list.
And so we really do need them.
We can demonstrate that we don't have any other,
better option within, you know,
the native population of the country.
So we really need to hire this person.
The government will give you a visa
and sometimes there's a little bit back and forth.
Sometimes there is a little bit of back and forth,
you'll have to sort of vouch for who you are
and your qualifications and the company
that you're getting hired at will have to vouch
that they're actually a company
and that they really do need you.
And the government sits in between you two
and sort of like arbitrates between the two things
that you are claiming and finally they send you a visa
that says yes, you can live and work here
for some set amount of time.
And that's important to realize is that
that initial visa is probably going to be
only for a certain amount of time.
And it's not, this is not a apply once
and then forget it sort of thing.
This is sort of like, okay, well,
we're gonna give you permission to be here
and to work here and live here for a year.
Now, if you prove to be undesirable for any reason,
maybe you get fired from the job
or maybe you just aren't very good at your job
or maybe you're a troublemaker,
maybe you end up going around at night,
you know, defacing walls,
then they will take that option to not renew your visa.
I mean, if you're doing something really terrible,
they will just, they won't care that they gave you a visa,
they will kick you out anyway.
But I mean, if you're just kind of like an annoyance
and not super great to have around,
they will just not renew the visa at the end of the year
or if you fail to apply for a renewal,
they will not renew the visa
because they'll just assume that you've got the paperwork
and you got tired of the job
so you're leaving after a year.
Not enough skin off their back, they don't care.
So that's the sort of the way in
is to find a country with a shortage of some skill
that you happen to have
and then find a company within that country
who is hiring within that skill category.
Apply and go to the country, get that visa.
So once you've got the visa, once you're in the country,
you do need to continue to apply for renewals.
So you do that usually, I mean, nowadays it's mostly online
but sometimes you'll have to mail copies of forms
to the local country, the local government
and you may even have to send them in your passport.
That's weird, when you have to do that, that's scary
because you know how everyone tells you,
never let your passport out of your possession,
do not ever give it to anybody, hang on to that thing.
Like that's what they always tell you
when you're on holiday, right?
When you just go to France, they're like,
you hang on to that passport, if you use that passport,
you'll be stuck in France forever
and you're not supposed to speak French
so then where will you be?
But in real life, when you're removing somewhere,
yeah, they want your passport, they'll just be like,
hey, put in an envelope and send it to us,
we'll take care of it, we promise,
we need to make like photocopies of it or something.
So, and they need to put the new visa in there,
they need to physically paste the new visa in.
So you'll do that and you'll do that every year
and eventually after some number of years,
you can do, you can usually, and again,
this may differ from country to country
so you'll have to look into it
but eventually at some point,
everyone gets tired of the paperwork,
even the government employees
and they're, it comes to the point
where everyone sort of agrees, okay,
you're planning on being around for a while,
you're doing well at your job,
you're not causing any trouble
and frankly, we're tired of doing paperwork
so why don't you apply for a maybe a resident visa?
So this as the name implies means
that you can stay in the country for a longer period of time.
So basically instead of having to renew your visa every year,
you get to only have to renew it every three years
or every five years or some number of years
and that's a great thing to have
and a lot of people live on resident visas for ages, really.
They just, they get that resident visa
and they're happy, that's all they need.
They'll reapply every five years
and that's not, you know, it's sort of a formality
or I guess people think of it as just kind of like,
I'll apply and then of course I'm gonna get approved.
It's just, it's a thing that we do every five years.
It's cool.
And there's no guarantee there.
I mean, it is, it does have to get renewed.
So to get that thing no longer hanging over your head,
the only step up I think as far as I know
from a resident visa is citizenship.
And citizenship is a whole,
well sometimes there's a permanent resident visa
where you can apply for just a visa without an end-to-date,
really and it just says, look,
as long as you're in the country,
well actually I think for the resident visa,
you have to be in the country some number of days.
Like you have to be within the borders for, you know,
let's say 300 out of 365 days a year or whatever.
So if you just, if you traipse about
and go off to other countries,
they won't consider you even a resident anymore.
It's like you didn't really spend any time here.
But as long as you're there for a set amount of time,
that's, you know, that you're fulfilling
your requirement of the visa.
Now if you wanna lift those requirements
and you wanna stop having to reapply
for a new visa every three or five years or whatever it is,
then you can get sometimes a permanent resident visa,
which simply says, yep, you live here now.
You're not a citizen, but you're basically,
you're a de facto citizen.
So it's kind of like a common law citizen.
Like well, you're here so often that all the benefits
that we give to our citizens are going to also be given to you
or at least most of the benefits.
And it kind of, it'll vary from country to country.
Sorry to keep saying that,
but that's just kind of something to keep in mind
that my experience in one country and my friends of mine's experience
and other countries are not going to necessarily be the same
as yours in some other country.
So you have to kind of look into it yourself.
And it's not always obvious.
It's a lot of legal speak and a lot of websites
and a lot of forms and a lot of books to read and research to do.
But hopefully you'll learn to navigate that
as you meet other people who have immigrated.
So anyway, you may get a permanent visa application
or rather a permanent visa, in which case,
you can just kind of live there.
And maybe, you know, if there's like voting,
then you can maybe vote.
Maybe you'll be required to vote.
You should look into that.
There are different countries do things different ways.
So if you become a permanent visa,
you might have a permanent resident.
You may find that you have obligations
that you didn't know you had before
or that you didn't even have in your home country.
Things are different.
So you should really, really review these sorts of things.
After the permanent residency,
some, you know, usually you have to spend another set amount
of time in the country.
And finally, finally, after that,
might be five years, might be 10 years, whatever.
Keep that visa paperwork up to date.
But as a permanent resident,
you shouldn't have to do anything.
But after some number of years,
they'll take you seriously.
They kind of get the hint.
And then you may be able to apply for citizenship.
And that's a big topic citizenship.
I mean, there's an emotional factor.
A lot of people kind of feel that their homeland
is sort of part of who they are.
And it's built in, you know,
it's part of their nature is where they were born
and their culture and all this other stuff.
So they would never want to give up their citizenship.
But I mean, look, you moved to another country.
So maybe you do want to get rid of your citizenship.
Well, if you want to do that,
you have to file paperwork with lots of different places.
So first of all, you have to apply for citizenship
in one country, your new country.
And then you have to apply to revoke possibly
your citizenship from your homeland.
Now, it depends on what your homeland is.
But certainly for the USA,
you have to apply to drop your citizenship.
And then you have to pay the money
to really, really drop citizenship.
This is not a free process.
They make you pay to stop being a citizen.
So once you do that, now you no longer have a USA passport.
You are no longer a USA citizenship, a citizen.
And that has a bunch of, or whatever your homeland is, right?
And that may or may not have a lot of ramification
for really what you're entitled to.
So you want to review kind of like,
what are the benefits that this citizenship offers me?
What are the benefits that this citizenship offers me?
And you can kind of look between the two
and sort of figure out which one is more advantageous to you.
And it might depend.
I mean, it might depend on what homeland you're coming from
and what you're trying to make your new homeland.
There's a lot of stuff about the passport too.
Once you move to another country,
you start hearing a lot about the good passport,
the best passport to get.
The passport that gets you into the most places,
like not parties, just other countries.
The USA passport, for instance,
it might have changed now, may not have, I'm not sure.
But at one point, at least, the USA passport,
very, very specifically restricted you
from going into Cuba at all for fun,
for research, for anything.
You're not supposed to go to Cuba.
And so if you had a USA passport, you were bummed about that
because you were like, oh, I can't go to Cuba.
But if you had a UK passport,
you could pretty much go anywhere.
From what I've heard, there's practically
new restrictions on a UK passport.
It's really, it's kind of like the one to have supposedly.
So there are lots of different sort of varieties
of benefits and drawbacks to different countries
and having different citizenship in different countries.
Now, generally speaking, you can usually only
have one citizenship.
I mean, there might be exceptions,
but a lot of times places don't want you
to be a citizen of two places because, ostensibly,
you can only live in one.
You can only be in one place at one time.
So they typically want you to be either a citizenship,
a citizen of their country or that country, but not both.
Now, there are exceptions.
So it really depends on what countries we're talking about.
Along with citizenship, also generally comes taxes.
So once again, depending on the country
that you're coming from and going to,
you may be obligated to pay taxes to your homeland,
as well as to your new country, unless you drop citizenship.
And in fact, the USA, along with maybe three other countries,
they require you to pay taxes in the USA, whether or not
you've been in the USA that year at all.
Now, there's a bunch of exceptions to that
because now you can say, well, I've earned foreign income
and no US income.
So I should be exempt from US taxes.
So really, you're filing taxes, but you're not paying taxes.
But then to get rid of your citizenship
so that you can stop filing zero dollar taxes,
you have to pay like three grand or something like that.
And then even then, if you make too much foreign currency,
then the US kind of feels like you probably
should just pay them anyway just because.
And so you have to pay taxes because you made too much money
in the foreign land.
How that affects the US, I'm not really clear on,
but it's probably something to do with foreign nationals
or businesses or something.
I'm not really sure, but that's how it is.
So you can write off, I think,
up to a six-digit income or something like that.
And then after that, the US is like,
no, you're making too much money over there.
Why don't you just send some back home?
I think it's time and you might say,
but I haven't even been in the States in like three years.
And they'll just be like, nah,
you need to send of it some of it over here.
So, and again, that depends on the country
that we're talking about.
So talking about the US, yes, that's a thing.
Some other country that might not be a thing.
If you can show that, hey, I wasn't even on your soil
for the entire duration of 2018 or 19 or 20 or whatever,
they will happily bow out to having you file
or pay taxes in that country.
But of course, you'll be paying taxes
in your new country.
All of this becomes drastically more complex
if you have a family that you're traveling around with
because now the target country that you're trying to move to
sees a bunch more potential liabilities.
They want to see that you're going to make enough money
to support your entire family,
whether they are all healthy or whether they all are ill
and as they grow up, are they going to be able to get jobs
and are they going to be citizens?
Are they going to become citizens?
Are they just going to become permanent residents?
Like, what's the situation here?
What's the future look like?
They want to know that sort of thing.
So when you've got a family, it becomes,
well, the children are your dependents, obviously.
And then your partner is possibly your dependent,
but possibly not.
And then that becomes the whole thing over again.
So in other words, you may be someone
with a skill shortage on that country's list.
You know, they might have listed your special talent
as something that they are desiring to have in their country.
But what about your partner?
If your partner is just in a boring old job
that anybody can do and the country
doesn't really feel like they really necessarily need that,
they don't really feel obligated necessarily
to grant your partner a work visa.
They may grant your partner a visiting visa for a year
to quote unquote, visit the country
as you are both living and well.
One of you would be working there.
Or they might grant maybe a temporary residential visa
to your partner and your children.
It really kind of depends on the deal
that you're able to wrangle from the government
that you're dealing with.
And the company that you're, you know,
ostensibly getting hired at in this imagined scenario
may not really have any sway over that.
I mean, they may, because if they're a big company
that has a major influence over the economy of that country,
then they may be able to kind of nudge the government
and say, look, in order for us to continue
to be as successful as we are, we need workers.
And a lot of those workers are going to have families.
So you need to just kind of just deal with that
and hand out a couple more visas per employee
because, you know, we pay well.
So we think that the families are going to be supported.
We don't think it's a big deal.
Can you meet us halfway?
And the government will probably hack us, I mean, hopefully.
But it can be a very stressful experience
because you might be applying for a work visa for yourself
and then your partner is giving like a holiday visa.
So your partner is just on holiday for a year.
Whether your partner wants to be on holiday for a year or not.
For instance, maybe you're working
and your partner has given up a job
and would very much like to continue that career
just in another country,
but the government, the local government
won't permit your partner to work
because that's not seen as a skill that a non,
that they need to import.
Now, ideally, what happens is that after some time
of being in the country, your partner looks enough
like a resident that your partner getting a job,
it doesn't feel so abrasive.
It doesn't feel like they're stealing a job from a local
because, yeah, your partner's basically a local now.
But I mean, that can take years.
That can take up to, well, I mean, it can take up to anything.
It can, it can certainly take like, you know,
that first initial year of sort of like,
well, here you are, you've got this job,
let's see how you, let's see how it goes.
Your partner's just gonna have to be on holiday
for a year, whether they like it or not.
And then maybe after some time,
after you get a residency visa or something better,
then maybe your partner is allowed by the government
to go out and find paying gigs.
And that can be tough, tough on a partner, you know?
Like, I mean, it might be exciting and fun.
Hey, we're gonna move to a different country.
Yeah, country, this will be really cool.
And then kind of reality sinks in.
It's like, oh, wow, I've got a lot of spare time
here in this country.
And while it is very cool to be in this country,
it's days sure are long here.
And it becomes sort of a problem.
And maybe there's volunteer gigs around
that your partner can go volunteer for things
or maybe your partner has a healthy and productive hobby
that they can just work on, you know, and not get paid for.
I mean, maybe that's fine.
But you do have to consider that sort of thing.
And it's one of those things that you may very well
and easily forget while suddenly you're both excited
about the prospect of, oh my gosh,
we can move to this country possibly slow down
and think, okay, well, if we both move,
then we both have to get like visas
and what kind of visas are out there
and what kind of skills are actively being imported
into this country.
And do we both qualify for that?
Now, like I say, all of this is done pretty much online.
I mean, these days, I assume at one point in the world,
you probably had to go to like the embassy or something,
but I don't think that that's really a thing anymore.
You can go to a country's website,
you can look at their skills shortage list
and kind of get an idea of what countries
are looking to import.
And then as a separate action, you need to go,
you need to find companies with a building in that country
and apply to that company and then work with them both
to get yourself into the country.
So that's basically all I know on the process
of moving to another country.
And like I say, some of this is done,
it's kind of down from my own research.
Some of it's from my own experience
and then some of it is from the experience
of other people that I know who live abroad.
And honestly, my only experience has been
with American immigration.
Like that's all I know about really.
But I've had friends from France and from Colombia
and from a couple of different, well, Germany,
a couple of different places.
So I kind of, I've gotten little hints of how it is
and it all seems fairly similar,
but there are, you know, you do need to look
at the specifics, do your research and try it out.
It's really, it's a lot of fun,
especially if you don't like your homeland,
not that you don't,
but sometimes it's nice to get out,
try some other places, you know, shop around a little bit.
So good luck, thanks for listening, talk to you later.
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