Thea Kaplan-Lee and Teresa Lee landed in Lisbon at nightfall on the last Friday in January. They arrived tired, but relieved because they had a furnished apartment waiting for them, a bright sunny Saturday and, above all, a country in full democracy. The two Americans were leaving behind their lifelong friends and a beautiful gated community in San Diego, where California meets Mexico. Looking ahead, they hope to stay away from the influence of the new tenant of the White House.
“When Trump won in November, we thought: ‘Thank God we’ve already started the process of moving to Portugal’,” Thea recalled, still packing, on the phone. “There’s so much hatred that we don’t feel safe in the United States,” explained the former civil servant, who has worked in a veterans’ hospital for the past two decades. “I can hide the fact that I’m Jewish, but since Teresa is of Mexican origin and her father was Cantonese, she’s clearly a minority. And we’ve been together for 30 years and we’re married, but we’ve stopped introducing ourselves as a couple to strangers.”
Janet and Bill Morris
“We used to be proud to be Americans, now we’re not”
Now Janet, 66, and Bill, 67, confess to feeling embarrassed when they say where they’re from. They had planned to come for two years, but Trump’s election has turned the tide and they have bought a house in Tondelinha, near Viseu, where they will move later this month
A year and a half ago, around the same time that Donald Trump was confirmed as the Republican candidate for President, Thea and Teresa were first and foremost interested in finding out which was the safest country in the world for American expats. When Portugal appeared in sixth place, they decided to come and check it out for themselves and were so taken with the quality of life, the tranquillity and the friendliness of the people that they started to make the move.
Today, they say that politics would be the first reason to leave the United States and they believe that they are not the only ones who think so. “It’s not just the gay community or the Jews who are afraid,” Teresa stresses. “A lot of people are terrified of what comes out of Trump’s mouth. I pray that he doesn’t influence the rest of the world, because he’s really dangerous. And it’s scary to think that more than 77 million people voted for him.”
To speak of an exodus would be an exaggeration or premature, but the truth is that as soon as the first results pointing to Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris became known, Americans started Googling “Move to Portugal”. And the peak happened just a few minutes after the winner’s speech, with searches being registered mainly in Oregon, Colorado and Washington, states where the map was filled with blue, the color of the Democratic Party.
After election night, HousingAnywhere, a medium-term rental platform in Europe, saw an increase of almost 400% in American users, with 66% focusing on Portugal, Spain and Italy. And by the end of that week, demand was not going to slow down, according to real estate consultancy Athena Advisers: between November 6 and 9, the terms “Portugal Property” and “Portugal Golden Visa” registered the highest number of searches in the United States in the last five years.
First part of the article published in VISÃO magazine. Available here in digital edition.
Ray and Gislaine McCall
“We already felt insecure”
The violence was happening closer and closer to home in Orlando. Hostility increased with the rise of Trump. And Ray and Gislaine, both 62, began to hear it said out loud that civil rights were unnecessary
Michael and Kelly Barrett
“Things have been insane”
With everything that’s been happening in recent weeks in the United States, Michael, 68, and Kelly, 64, guarantee that they have no regrets about their decision to soon swap their home in Mendocino, California, for a rented apartment in Porto
Natasha Donets and Dean Stepánek
“We came looking for peace”
Natasha, 65, and Dean, 84, have nothing but good things to say about their neighborhood in Óbidos Lagoon. And they believe that the slower pace of society translates into greater kindness towards others
Glen and Amanda Sharp
“There is an element of fear”
The concept of a refugee is restrictive, remember Glen, 65, and Amanda, 57. But the two find many parallels between the Trump administration and the Nazi timeline and have the notion that a catastrophe could be on the way
Teresa Lee and Thea Kaplan-Lee
“There is so much hatred in the United States”
Initially, Teresa, 64, and Thea, 68, chose Portugal for its safety, quality of life, tranquility and friendly people. Having just arrived in Lisbon, they are grateful to have “escaped” Trump
Christopher Zimmerman
“I wanted to be here on April 25, 2024”
Christopher, 65, who moved with his wife to Setúbal almost ten months ago, calls himself “a recovering politician”. In the United States, he was a Democrat. In Portugal, he is still grateful for the solidarity
First part of the article published in VISÃO magazine. Available here in digital edition.
