Americans are leaving the country in record numbers

Americans are leaving the country – and not coming back.

The number of people moving out of the U.S. last year exceeded the number of people moving in – and the disparity isn't just due to immigration crackdowns. The Wall Street Journal reports a record number of American citizens are uprooting themselves and moving overseas.

The move comes as people search for a place to call home where they feel safer and their dollar can go further. (Some countries, like Albania, are offering tax-free living for a year.) Other people are just looking to escape the current political environment, giving this outflow of citizens a nickname: The "Donald Dash".

All totaled, the U.S. saw net negative migration of 150,000 people last year. The number is expected to increase in 2026. According to calculations by the Brookings Institution, but it's not an exact figure. There are no official tracking numbers of the number of people who leave the country each year.

The Department of Homeland Security says there were 675,000 deportations and 2.2 million “self-deportations” last year. Most of those, as you might expect, were due to immigration crackdowns.

There doesn't appear to be a favored destination for the new expats. One of every 15 residents in Dublin’s trendy Grand Canal Dock district was born in the U.S., according to realtors there. And Mexico is seeing an influx of seniors who are moving there for low-cost nursing homes.

In the UK, Americans are applying for British citizenship at the highest rate since 2004, when record keeping began. In the first three months of last year, roughly 6,600 applied. And an estimated 40,000 former Americans applied for an Irish passport last year (with about 32,000 doing so the year prior).

As for the who, it's a wide swath, from business owners to divorcees to people on limited budgets looking to stretch their budget.