On a crisp October afternoon in Salt Lake City’s Avenues neighborhood, Kathleen Lawliss and her partner, Mary, lead a couple through their backyard, pointing out two faded red rocking chairs. The visitors, drawn by a Facebook Marketplace listing, comment on the home’s beauty as a bumblebee floats between late-blooming flowers. But for Kathleen and Mary, this is not just a yard sale—it’s the prelude to a life-altering move. After 32 years together, the couple is selling nearly everything they own in preparation for a new chapter in Canada.
“Where are you moving?” asks one of the visitors, testing a rocker. Kathleen’s reply—“Canada”—is met with a knowing glance and a single word: “Trump?” Both women nod. It’s a simple answer to a complex decision, one shared by a growing number of Americans who are choosing to leave the country or even renounce their citizenship, citing political frustration and a sense of alienation from a nation they once called home.
According to a 2025 survey reported by India Today, nearly half of U.S. expats are considering renouncing their citizenship, with 51% pointing directly to political dissatisfaction. And as The Washington Post notes, between 5,000 and 6,000 Americans now renounce their citizenship annually—a number once driven primarily by tax headaches, but increasingly by the country’s political direction and social climate.
For Kathleen and Mary, the decision to leave has been brewing for years. During Donald Trump’s first term, they often discussed the possibility, feeling uneasy about his leadership, particularly his response to the pandemic and his stance on LGBTQ rights. Both retired—Kathleen from her career as an emergency room doctor at St. Mark’s Hospital, Mary from the University of Utah—were financially secure and fulfilled. Still, they stayed, hoping things might improve.
But when Trump, in his second term, signed an order banning transgender soldiers, the couple’s patience snapped. “She was emotionally done during Trump’s first term,” Kathleen said of Mary. “I thought staying and fighting was still an option until he started doing it, day one.” By April 2025, Kathleen had landed a job as an emergency room doctor in Canada and started the paperwork for a work permit.
The couple’s complicated relationship with America stretches back decades. Both raised Catholic, they felt rejected by their faith because of their sexuality. Their life together began in an era when same-sex partnerships were rarely recognized. In 2008, they registered as domestic partners in California—after a detour to a bail bonds office to find a notary. They married quietly in New York five years later, with Kathleen’s brother officiating. “We’ve always done what we could with the tools other people fought for,” Kathleen reflected. “We’re nowhere activists.”
Kathleen’s military service ended painfully under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” As a scholarship recipient in the Army’s Health Professions Program, she faced an impossible choice: serve in silence or leave. “I realized I couldn’t live that lie,” she recalled. A legal battle ensued, dragging on for two years. “They threatened to throw me in prison,” she said. “It delayed my medical training and left me humiliated.” Ultimately, she received an honorable discharge, but the Army erased her service from its records. “I went to the VA to sign up for benefits and they said, ‘We have no record of you,’” she remembered. “I signed a dotted line to die for my country. I was serious about it. I was committed.”
The couple faced open hostility in Utah in the late 1990s—harassment, vandalism, slurs, and even paintball attacks on their home. “No activism, no pride flags, no marching,” Kathleen said. “Just living our life, going to work, coming home.” They eventually found some peace in Salt Lake City’s Avenues neighborhood, but the scars lingered. “I describe my relationship with America as an abusive relationship,” Kathleen said. “I love it deeply, but I don’t think it has my best interests at heart.”
Canada, in contrast, has taken steps to acknowledge and atone for its past treatment of LGBTQ service members, even offering reparations. “The Canadian government actually apologized for its treatment of LGBTQ service members and even offered reparations,” Kathleen said. “That kind of acknowledgment matters.”
Trump’s transgender military ban was the final straw, reviving memories Kathleen had tried to bury. “It was like reliving ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ all over again,” she explained. “I couldn’t do it anymore.” The couple began researching immigration options immediately, though the process was not without setbacks. Their first visa consultant turned out to be a scam. Eventually, Kathleen secured a hospital contract on April 30, 2025, and began the official paperwork the next day.
Even with Canada’s fast-track immigration policies for healthcare workers, the process has been slow and bureaucratic. “I think they’re flooded with applicants,” Kathleen said. “It’s not just us.” She knows at least two American colleagues—both dual citizens—who have already made the move. “They love it,” she added. She worries about a “brain drain” in American medicine and higher education. “We’re encouraging smart people in America to be silent, lest they be attacked,” she said. “And we’re discouraging bright people from coming here at all. Who would come to the U.S.? If you want the best in the world to show up, you can’t make it a dangerous place to be.”
The numbers support her concerns. CIC News reported that immigration from the U.S. to Canada increased by about 33% between 2016 and 2021, and Axios found that U.S. asylum applications in Canada surged 600% in 2017. After the 2024 presidential election, U.S. immigration inquiries to Canada jumped 300%, according to CBC and immigration attorney Mario Bellissimo. Veronica Riley, another Canadian immigration lawyer, confirmed a surge in interest from Americans seeking permanent residency—even among those with no previous ties to Canada.
For those who go further and renounce their citizenship, the process is neither easy nor cheap. As India Today reports, renouncing U.S. citizenship is expensive, complicated, and irreversible. The U.S. is one of the few countries that taxes citizens regardless of where they live, creating financial and bureaucratic headaches for Americans abroad. Some foreign banks refuse American clients due to U.S. reporting laws, and online forums like the 3,000-member Facebook group “Renounce US Citizenship – Why and How” are filled with stories of political and personal disillusionment. A 2025 Greenback survey found that 61% of renouncers cited taxes and 51% cited dissatisfaction with the U.S. government or political direction.
Expats like Colleen McCutcheon, a 33-year-old Ohio native living in London, describe a gradual loss of American identity. “It was a collection of things that happened along the way, bit by bit, that gave me the feeling that I no longer had any sense of being American,” she told The Washington Post. For some, the breaking point was the January 6 Capitol riot, for others, it was challenges to voting rights or the specter of gun violence.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has made the path to U.S. citizenship even tougher for immigrants, overhauling the interview process as of October 20, 2025, with expanded interviews, a more rigorous civics exam, and deeper scrutiny of applicants’ “good moral character.”
For Kathleen and Mary, the path forward is clear. They have sold or donated most of their belongings, including the two red rocking chairs. Kathleen’s work permit is pending, expected within weeks. When she visits her soon-to-be new home in Canada, she feels relief. “Canada is so nice,” she said. “We don’t meet any of these hateful people. It’s just a different world up there. Even the conservatives up here are just different.” The move is monumental, but after years of resisting, Kathleen says, “This is the hill I’m going to die on.”
For a growing number of Americans, the dream is no longer about coming to America—it’s about finding a place where they feel at home.
