It just drives me crazy. As a professional person with marketable and much needed skills (health care), it would be virtually impossible for me to emigrate from the States to the U.K. or Ireland, where I have close cultural ties and some family. (Cousins.) I can't emigrate to Ireland based on a grandparent, as the last one of us to be born in Europe was my grandmother...born in England. I thought I might possibly retire in Ireland, as I am out of the workforce now and perfectly comfortable...house paid in full, car paid in full, no debt of any kind, decent NW, and a FIRE income of $40,000. I can live fairly large...really have anything I would want...but can I retire in Ireland? Nooooooo. Oh no, no, no. In fairness, I do get it that the U.S. makes it very hard for them to come here, too. Annoying from both vantage points. But if it's so hard to retire in the U.S. for the Irish (or U.K. subjects), and so hard for Yanks to retire to Ireland or the U.K....why is it that we all are chock-a-block full and over-run with third world immigrants or migrants getting in one way or the other--many illegal and staying forever...how do they Do that? And why can't we middle-class Americans or western Europeans? I'm just scratching my head. Canada is hard, too, btw.
If we are supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, a new hope for the trammeled millions--holding up our torches like the Statue of Liberty or whatever--why is it so easy for some to immigrate and so hard for others? What am I missing?