Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Journal.
Episode: Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers
Date: June 2, 2026
Hosts: Jessica Mendoza & Ryan Knutson
Guests: Drew Hinshaw & Joe Parkinson (WSJ reporters), Michael & Stephanie LeBlanc (American expat family)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the surprising and growing trend of Americans leaving the United States to live and work abroad. Journalists Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson, both based in Europe, discuss how they uncovered the scale and nuance of this "American Exodus." The episode follows real-life stories—most notably the LeBlanc family, who left Los Angeles for Lisbon—to illuminate the motivations, challenges, and impacts of this movement, both for the U.S. and the countries receiving these new expats.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Discovering the Trend: Americans Abroad

• Hidden in Plain Sight:
  Drew and Joe, reporting from Europe, noticed a growing number of Americans living—not just vacationing—abroad. They encountered people running U.S. businesses remotely from European cities (Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin) ([00:43]).

• Data Gap:
  The U.S. government does not systematically track how many Americans move abroad; estimates of Americans living overseas range wildly from 4 to 9 million ([04:00]).

  “Our government doesn’t keep statistics on the number of Americans who leave… it’s all over the map.” – Drew Hinshaw ([04:00])

• Historic Shift:
  In the past year, for the first time since the 1930s, more people left the U.S. than moved in ([01:17]).

  “Last year, for the first time since the 1930s, more people left than moved in.” – Drew Hinshaw ([01:17])

2. Why Are Americans Leaving?

Political & Economic Factors

• More Americans Want Out:
  The desire to move abroad has nearly doubled—from 1 in 10 Americans (2008) to 1 in 5 (last year) ([01:41]).

• Structural Problems:
  Factors include high healthcare costs, unaffordable housing, and a search for alternate lifestyles ([01:53]).

  “It’s also a collapse of faith because there’s an affordability crisis.” – Drew Hinshaw ([01:53])

• Not Just Politics:
  While some call the current wave the “Donald Dash” (post-Trump reelection), the trend predates 2020. Expats come from across the political spectrum ([05:16]).

  “It’s a deeper structural shift that’s causing this.” – Drew Hinshaw ([05:16])

Impact of Remote Work

• Remote Revolution:
  The ability to work from anywhere—accelerated during COVID—freed many Americans from geographic ties to their jobs ([05:42]).
• Growing Numbers:
  Americans in Portugal jumped fivefold since COVID; similar trends in Spain, Netherlands, Czech Republic ([05:53]).

Changing Demographics

• Who Moves?
  The expat profile has broadened: not just wealthy retirees or corporate assignees, but young families, Midwesterners, Southerners, and people with essential careers ([06:22]-[07:03]).

  “It’s young families, it’s younger people. It’s not just people from the coasts.” – Joe Parkinson ([07:03])

Economic Power

• American Wages Go Farther:
  Even middle-class American salaries stretch further in many countries—opening the door for more to move ([07:16]).

3. The LeBlanc Family’s Story

• Motivations:
  High costs, long commutes, work-life imbalance, healthcare expenses, and school safety concerns drove their decision. Their health insurance premium in L.A.: $1,500/month ([08:53]-[09:03]).

  “The ambulance wasn’t covered by our health insurance. And it was a $5,000 bill.” – Stephanie LeBlanc ([09:06])

• Cost-of-Living and Safety:
  Two active shooter lockdowns at their child’s school were a turning point ([14:13]).

  “After the first one, it was really unsettling. The second one, Steph was really just beside herself.” – Michael LeBlanc ([14:21])

• Preparing the Move:
  The LeBlancs spent 3–4 years planning, saving, and investing in U.S. rental properties to meet Portugal’s passive income visa requirement ($27,000/year for a family of four) ([13:10]-[14:06]).

• New Life in Lisbon:
  Expenses cut nearly in half; no car needed; private school similar in cost to aftercare back home ([15:25]-[16:18]).

  “Our expenses have been cut in half.” – Stephanie LeBlanc ([16:14])

• Quality of Life:
  More time with family, less stress, and perceived greater safety and opportunity ([15:47]-[17:00]).

  “We’re able to … live what I would say is a much fuller, richer life here than we were able to do in Los Angeles.” – Stephanie LeBlanc ([17:13])

4. Market & Policy Forces Shaping the Exodus

• Countries Compete for Americans:
  Visa incentives for U.S. citizens in Albania, Spain, Netherlands, Mexico, and more ([12:14]).
• Booming Relocation Services:
  New companies serve different demographics of American expats (e.g., Lux Nomads, GTFO Tours, She Hit Refresh) ([17:49]-[18:06]).

5. The Backlash & Tensions Abroad

• Not Always Welcome:
  Some European residents resent the American influx, as it’s blamed for rising rents and gentrification ([18:36]-[19:03]).

  “It’s becoming increasingly controversial… you have seen a backlash.” – Joe Parkinson ([18:36])

• First-Person Displacement:

  “I was practically pushed out of the neighborhood where I used to live. And now I feel pushed out of Lisbon itself, as if the city were rejecting me.” – (European resident, quoted) ([19:08]-[19:20])

6. Broadening Appeal and Representation

• Diverse Destinations:
  Americans move to Mexico, Albania, Kenya, Southeast Asia, etc. ([19:25]; [20:08]).

• Celebrity Influence:
  Singer Kelis has become an influencer for black Americans considering Kenya ([19:43]-[20:17]).

7. Emotional and Identity Impact

• Strained Relationships:
  Moving abroad sometimes interpreted as “rejection” of one’s country or family; can trigger sensitive conversations ([20:34]).

  “A lot of family members and some friends … feel kind of like that we are either rejecting them or rejecting the US and sometimes it’s a nuanced conversation.” – Michael LeBlanc ([20:34])

• Evolving American Identity:
  The trend challenges the classic “nation of immigrants” narrative ([21:48]).

  “We understand our country to be one that people want to move to … but there’s a subcurrent to that, which is this is a country that Americans are leaving.” – Drew Hinshaw ([21:48])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Historic Outflow:

  “Last year, for the first time since the 1930s, more people left than moved in.”
  — Drew Hinshaw ([01:17])

• On Health Insurance Costs:

  “Even with health insurance... our son had to go to the emergency room ... the ambulance wasn’t covered... $5,000 bill.”
  — Stephanie LeBlanc ([09:06])

• Safety as Motivation:

  “When my son entered public school in Los Angeles, within two years he had two active shooter lockdowns.”
  — Stephanie LeBlanc ([14:13])

• Life in Portugal:

  “Our expenses have been cut in half… Healthcare was a big piece... We just walk here and take the metro…”
  — Stephanie LeBlanc ([16:14])

• Cost-of-Living Backlash:

  “It’s not like the American influx is a uniformly positive... dynamic across Europe... you have seen a backlash.”
  — Joe Parkinson ([18:36])

• Rethinking U.S. Identity:

  “This challenges the idea that we have of ourselves as Americans... there is now a pipeline of people that have made this move.”
  — Drew Hinshaw ([21:48])

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Important Timestamps

• [00:43] – Early observations: Americans living and working across Europe
• [01:17] – More people leaving the U.S. than entering for first time since 1930s
• [04:00] – U.S. government lacks tracking of citizens leaving
• [05:16] – Structural, not just political, drivers of the trend
• [08:53] – LeBlancs describe healthcare costs; motivation for leaving
• [14:13] – School shooting drills as a main reason for expat move
• [15:25] – The LeBlancs’ new daily life in Lisbon
• [17:49] – Growth of expat-focused relocation services
• [18:36] – European backlash against American expats
• [19:43] – Kelis and the role of influencers in promoting overseas life
• [21:48] – Reflections: what the outflow says about America

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Conclusion

The episode paints a nuanced picture of the American exodus: what began as a trickle of well-off professionals is now a broad-based, rapidly growing trend. Economic pressures, desire for a different way of life, and the global shift to remote work all play a role—while receiving nations balance opportunity and backlash. The phenomenon is reframing what it means to be "American," suggesting a future where cross-border mobility is not merely an escape, but a mainstream choice. The coming years may redefine both American identity and America's relationship with the world.

Transcript

[Jessica Mendoza]

Our colleagues, Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson both live in Europe and they report a lot of stories together, usually about things like high stakes hostage swaps or war in the Middle East. Here's Joe.

[Joe Parkinson]

Our job is to travel around normally finding the big stories that are happening across the world that Americans are interested in. Sometimes the the most appealing stories you almost miss because they're hiding in plain sight

[Jessica Mendoza]

in their day to day lives. Joe and Drew noticed something. They were meeting a lot of Americans and not just tourists. Here's Drew.

[Drew Hinshaw]

We met people who are buying and selling real estate in Texas out of Barcelona. We met someone who runs a trailer park in Florida out of Madrid, people running investment firms out of Berlin.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So they started wondering, was this just a coincidence or were more Americans uprooting their lives to move abroad? Joe and Drew started reporting. They reached out to the governments of more than 40 countries from Albania to Vietnam. And ultimately they found that the answer was yes.

[Drew Hinshaw]

America's always been a country of immigration, a land that people moved to. But last year, for the first time since the 1930s, more people left then moved in. And there's this really interesting undercurrent, which is that the number of Americans who are leaving the US to go live in foreign lands and work and retire and go to school there is rising. And it is rising really fast.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And even more Americans want to leave. In 2008, Gallup found that 1 in 10Americans wanted to move out of the US. Last year it was 1 in 5.

[Drew Hinshaw]

It poses elemental questions for America, which has always prided itself as a destination. But in some ways, it's also a collapse of faith because there's an affordability crisis. People are trying to avoid health care costs and housing costs. And also I think people are just hungry for something different, some different way of living.

[Joe Parkinson]

This story is about, in a way, challenging some of the foundational ideas of America and its story as a country of immigration. It just kind of blew my mind.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday, June 2nd. Coming up on the show, the American Exodus.

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[Jessica Mendoza]

When Joe and Drew started looking into this question of Americans moving abroad, they found that there weren't any statistics that they could easily go and get.

[Drew Hinshaw]

So here's what's really interesting. America. We conceive of our country as one of immigration to such a degree that our government doesn't keep statistics on the number of Americans who leave. In fact, if you go to the State Department and ask how many Americans live abroad, you get like this, I don't know. It's like the numbers, anywhere from 4 million to 9 million. It's all over the map.

[Jessica Mendoza]

They basically had to piece it together for themselves based on incomplete data from the US Government and elsewhere. One piece of data they did have is the number of deportations that have taken place under the Trump administration. Last year, the US removed 675,000 non citizens and many more foreign born residents chose to leave.

[Joe Parkinson]

But hidden within that is another story which is perhaps more surprising and perhaps even has a longer historical impact. And that is that more Americans are choosing to leave of their own volition.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Natural born Americans, Drew and Joe found through their reporting that at least 180,000Americans moved out of the U.S. last year. And they say that's likely a huge undercount. And so why are so many Americans leaving?

[Drew Hinshaw]

People tend to read this politically. And you've got some commentators that have labeled this wave of American immigrants the quote, Donald Dash, since the numbers have really just risen under President Trump's second term. But what we find is this is a phenomenon that's been building for years. Trump's reelection, like, yes, that was a factor for many, but for others not. And there's plenty of expats who voted for him. There's something, it's a deeper structural shift that's causing this.

[Jessica Mendoza]

This shift started before the COVID pandemic, but it really exploded during that time. That's when remote work, uncoupled, where you could live from where you could work. And the numbers reflect that trend.

[Drew Hinshaw]

So the number of Americans living in Portugal has jumped five fold since the COVID pandemic in 2024. It grew by 36% just that year. In the past 10 years, the number of Americans residing in Spain has doubled. The same in the Netherlands. It's more than doubled in the Czech Republic. And people say, oh, well, that's because we live in a time of immigration. People move wherever they want. It's not true the other way. Last year, more Americans moved to Germany than Germans moved to America. So this is a story of outflow. Not inflow,

[Joe Parkinson]

but the prototype of Americans who used to move was, to be honest, a kind of profile of the well credentialed, well educated, professional worker who was perhaps posted overseas or maybe had made money and wanted to retire overseas. That profile has now been completely shattered, completely turned on its head.

[Drew Hinshaw]

I always imagine the remote worker, a young, kind of unattached person sitting on the beach on Bali behind a laptop, you know, raving at night. But we met a lot of people who have kids and are raising their kids over here who are, you know, doing relatively serious businesses, architects, engineers. And they're doing it from small towns in the Pyrenees in southern France, places like that.

[Joe Parkinson]

It's young families, it's younger people. It's not just people from the coasts. It's people from the Midwest and people from the South. You don't have to look very hard to find them.

[Jessica Mendoza]

One thing enabling the surge, American wages, even middle class American salaries are high compared to most around the globe. And that's letting more people move abroad. Joe and Drew talked to dozens of people who've made the move, and Joe actually bumped into one of them at the supermarket.

[Joe Parkinson]

So I was doing the reporting for this piece, and there's an area of central Lisbon where there's an American supermarket. So I go into this supermarket and there was a guy there who was, like, handling this huge, like, jar of ranch dressing.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So our son really likes ranch dressing.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's Michael LeBlanc.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So I go in and I get the ranch. And while I'm in there, Joe approaches me. He introduced himself. He said he was a Wall Street Journal reporter and he was profiling expats.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Like many other Americans that Joe and Drew talked to, Michael and his wife Stephanie started thinking about leaving the US during the pandemic.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Covid was a time of reflection and realigning our values and our life goals. We started having bigger conversations of how we wanted to live our lives and what we wanted our lives to look like.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Post Covid, the LeBlancs lived in Los Angeles, where Michael is from. Both had careers. Stephanie was working for the Kuwaiti consulate in the cultural office, and Michael worked as a creative producer at a Software company. But even with full time jobs, between groceries, housing, and childcare for their two young kids, their everyday expenses could be a burden. And on top of that, there was health care.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

We had a big overhead for health insurance. We were paying, I think at any given time, between $12 and $15 a month in Los Angeles for health insurance.

[Michael LeBlanc]

1500.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

1500. Sorry, what did I say?

[Michael LeBlanc]

15.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Oh, 15. Sorry. $15. Yeah, it was. It was a burden. No, $1,500. And even with health insurance, you know, our son had to go to the emergency room for a high fever, and the ambulance wasn't covered by our health insurance. And it was a $5,000 bill. You know, luckily everything was okay. But those kinds of things can, you know, set a family back financially.

[Jessica Mendoza]

These kinds of concerns over healthcare costs were something Drew and Joe heard about a lot in their interviews.

[Drew Hinshaw]

Healthcare 100%. I spoke to a dad, he's also a software engineer who is saying, I realized if I just canceled my American health insurance, moved to Spain, bought local health insurance, I could use the difference to put my kids into one of the top schools in the whole country.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And it's not just the cost of living. The LeBlancs, they were just feeling overwhelmed by an American culture of hustling all the time just to keep up.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

We were really getting burnt out, I guess. Me specifically, with two young kids and working 50 hours a week and commuting, you know, an hour to and from work each day, dropping the kids off to daycare, preschool, elementary school, barely seeing them, being so exhausted on the weekends that we couldn't even be present and enjoy our family time.

[Jessica Mendoza]

They began to feel like they needed to make a change.

[Michael LeBlanc]

During COVID when we were both working from home, we decided we needed a bigger house. And so we started driving around, looking at neighborhoods in la and it became really complicated because of, you know, school districts and essentially all the places that we liked where there were good schools we couldn't afford. So it was making the process really complicated. And so one day I said to Steph, I was like, okay, let's just go big. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

[Jessica Mendoza]

And ultimately, the LeBlancs landed on Portugal. How they made it happen. That's next.

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[Jessica Mendoza]

Part of the reason some Americans are moving is because a number of countries are creating incentives to lure them in. More and more countries are finding ways to attract foreign workers with stable incomes. For example, Albania now lets US Citizens live there without paying taxes for a year. Spain and the Netherlands also have special breaks for digital nomads in Mexico. Americans get an automatic six month visa when crossing the border, which makes it easy to try out working remotely. There's a After considering their options, the leblancs decided on Portugal. They were initially drawn there by one of these easy visa programs.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So then we researched Portugal and then six months later that December is when we first went to Portugal. And so a combination of factors, the visa process being what it is, you know, the weather is similar to California and overall we liked it.

[Jessica Mendoza]

In the end, the family decided to apply for a visa that's dependent on passive income. To qualify, they had to show the Portuguese government that they could support themselves, that their investment income equaled the local minimum wage. And for a family of four like theirs, that's around $27,000 a year. To do that, the LeBlancs bought two properties in the US that they list on short term rental sites.

[Michael LeBlanc]

We bought one in Phoenix and one in San Antonio.

[Jessica Mendoza]

I see. Interesting.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

And I want to mention too that this was long term. This was not something that we were able to do within six months or a year. It took us three or four years to do this. And so we had to make the decision because we really wanted to make Portugal work. So we really cut expenses and we lived off of Michael's salary and we used my salary to save and invest and buy these rental properties. And that's what allowed us to be able to make the move.

[Jessica Mendoza]

While they were working towards their Expat dream, the LeBlancs went through another experience that solidified their resolve.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

When my son entered public school in Los Angeles, within two years he had two active shooter lockdowns.

[Michael LeBlanc]

After the first One, it was really unsettling. The second one, Steph was really just beside herself. She was like, let's homeschool then let's get out of here.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

And at that time we were thinking, do we pull him out? Do we homeschool him? I mean, this is not a realistic option for us because meanwhile we're both working 40, 50 hours a week, barely seeing our kids, dropping them off to school because we, this is, you know, the safest place for them. But not having that type of certainty.

[Jessica Mendoza]

No one was hurt during those incidents. But worrying about their kids safety put the LeBlancs even more firmly on a path to leaving the U.S. our colleague drew said this came up a lot when he talked to other American expats.

[Drew Hinshaw]

I have to say, every single parent we spoke to, like, it wasn't like we weren't trying to pry or like force people to say anything, you know, just we're very open ended about this. They all brought up school shootings. They're all just like really independently of us. You don't face the prospect of your child doing an active shooter drill. And they talked about how relieved they were.

[Jessica Mendoza]

In 2025, nearly four years after they first thought of moving abroad, the LeBlancs started their new lives. They got an apartment in central Lisbon and enrolled their kids in a private school nearby, which cost about the same as their kids after school care in la. And they ditched those long commutes. Instead they can walk their kids to school now.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

There's so much built in time to be with the family. Everything just feels a lot more relaxed. We get to spend a lot of time with the kids before school in the morning, pick them up at four in the afternoon and actually go to the park and enjoy them as a family while the kids are still young.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Stephanie, earlier you were talking about, you know, the changes that you made to your finances ahead of the move. When you run the numbers now, how do your expenses stack up compared to when you were living in la?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Our expenses have been cut in half.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Half.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Nearly cut in half, I would say. Yeah, Healthcare was a big piece of it for us. We don't have cars. We had two cars in la. We just walk here and take the metro. Housing is less expensive for us here. Groceries are certainly less expensive. We're not paying for gas anymore. The other thing for us is college. The cost of sending our children to US universities is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And here it's maybe a few thousand dollars a year. So that's a huge way that we're able to save money and not be contributing to college funds as much as we were aggressively. And then it lowers our retirement number significantly as well.

[Jessica Mendoza]

I asked them to put a number on their new budget.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Our budget is we're around $100,000 a year. That's what we can live off of comfortably, which that was not really sustainable for us to do in la. For us, we're able to do that and still save money and still live what I would say is a much fuller, richer life here than we were able to do in Los Angeles.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Part of that richer life is simply working less. Michael now mostly freelances rather than working 9 to 5. Meanwhile, Stephanie has changed careers. She now works in relocation services, helping other expats move to Portugal. Our colleague Joe mentioned that this field of relocation services is now booming.

[Joe Parkinson]

The number of Americans leaving is rising so fast that there's a whole kind of subsector of the economy that's growing to try and cater to their needs. And a bunch of relocation companies have sprouted up, and a lot of them have a branding that caters to a particular demographic.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Lux Nomads, for example, is a company for the well to do. GTFO Tours, caters to Trump critics. And she hit refresh targets, the biggest boom market of women. A Gallup poll last year found that 40% of American women between the ages of 15 and 44 would like to permanently move overseas if possible. But Europeans aren't necessarily so excited about their new neighbors.

[Joe Parkinson]

It's not like the American influx is a uniformly positive, welcomed, you know, dynamic across Europe. It's becoming increasingly controversial because Europe's suffering from a similar cost of living crisis, particularly in housing. And it's very easy to blame the international people who are moving and happy to pay a premium for their housing for the escalating cost in that area. So, you know, you have seen a backlash.

[Jessica Mendoza]

In Ponta do sol, rents rose 30% in just one year.

[Drew Hinshaw]

I was practically pushed out of the

[Joe Parkinson]

neighborhood where I used to live. And now I feel pushed out of Lisbon itself, as if the city were rejecting me.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Still, Americans continue to be drawn abroad, and not just to Western Europe.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Three months ago, we moved from the US to Mexico. And here's three things we stopped doing since moving to Mexico. I wake up thinking, did I really

[Jessica Mendoza]

just move myself and my three children

[Narrator/Advertiser]

to a different country, out of our life in Florida, all the way to Albania?

[Jessica Mendoza]

Even celebrities are promoting an international lifestyle to their followers online.

[Drew Hinshaw]

If you remember the singer Khalees, you know, my milkshake Brings all the boys

[Jessica Mendoza]

to the yard I haven't heard that song in a minute, but, yes, I remember her well.

[Drew Hinshaw]

You sure you don't want to sing that? I'm gonna spare our listeners having to hear me sing that. But wouldn't you know, she is now in Kenya. She's on Instagram. She's got, like, 3 million followers, and she makes these, like, quick videos about, like, the opportunities that she says are awaiting black Americans.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

I would say Kenyans are some of

[Jessica Mendoza]

the friendliest and super helpful.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Healthcare here is actually so good. It's really good, and it's really affordable,

[Jessica Mendoza]

which is amazing because I don't have insurance. But while many Americans rave about moving abroad, the decision to do so has also prompted hard conversations with friends and family. Here's Michael LeBlanc again.

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know, there's a distance, and a lot of some family members and some friends of ours feel kind of like that we are either rejecting them or rejecting the US and sometimes it's a nuanced conversation to say, you know, this is not. We're not rejecting the American system. And I had a conversation with my sister yesterday, and I asked her if she would ever consider moving over, and she said no. She said, I think I'm more American than you are. I can't imagine living outside of the US And I do feel very connected to California. But overall, you know, moving to another place where you can have a better quality of life, it's been a really easy transition. So now Lisbon feels like home.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So, Joe Drew, you know, we've been talking about Americans who are leaving or want to leave and what that means for America's idea of itself. I'm wondering if you both have any reflections on that, given all the reporting you've done.

[Drew Hinshaw]

To me, this challenges the idea that we have of ourselves as Americans. We understand our country to be one that people want to move to. And of course, that is still obviously true. But there's a subcurrent to that, which is this is a country that Americans are leaving. If you're someone who wants to walk home down a cobblestone street from work every day, you can do that. If you prefer to live in the suburbs behind a big car and drive through, you know, suburban Texas, you can do that. People have choices they didn't have once upon a time.

[Joe Parkinson]

Drew likes the cobblestone streets.

[Drew Hinshaw]

I don't know if you noticed, but

[Joe Parkinson]

one other very big kind of takeaway from this reporting that I think came through when we were speaking to dozens of people who've moved not just to Europe but to other places where a lot of Americans are going, Mexico, Southeast Asia is that there are a lot more that want to do this and there is now a pipeline of people that have made this move. How long they're able to last and whether this is some, you know, kind of historically very significant flow is yet to be determined. At the moment, it's just showing up in the data. And so the next few years will be decisive when we're trying to figure out whether this is one of those moments where perhaps the idea of America as a country of immigration starts to shift towards the idea of maybe something more nuanced.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's all for today. Tuesday, June 2nd. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're out every weekday afternoon. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.