Mailbag: A beginner's guide to moving to another country

Another mailbag post! A friend emailed me about someone about to lose her job and stated that she was interested in moving abroad, particularly Europe. Since she has no background, I decided to give her an overview of the process. I thought it might be useful to repeat this here. There's nothing in here that I've not written about before, but I thought a recap might be a good idea for new readers.

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Hi Sally (not her real name),

I hope you're doing well and I'm sorry to hear about your current troubles.

[Redacted] mentioned you want to live abroad and he asked if I could give you some advice. I've lived in the US, Japan, the UK, the Netherlands (twice) and France. I've not only been doing this for a long time, but I've also spent years researching and writing a "how to become an expat" blog at overseas-exile.com. I've also started thinking about doing day seminars on the topic in the US. The good news: with enough determination, you can move abroad. The bad news: it takes work, sometimes hard work.

If you want to live abroad, it's hard to do, but there are several general routes (I assume you're not rolling in dough, so I'm leaving some options off of this. If you have a large pile of surplus money, there are investment routes you can take, but be careful, not all are legal):

1. Marriage/Civil Partnership
2. Citizenship
3. Work/residence permit or the equivalent

I assume option #1 is not open to you right now.

For option #2, citizenship, I would strongly recommend that you trace your family tree.

The reason for that is because many people don't know their family tree well and when they do research, they often find legal opportunities to move abroad that they were previously unaware of. For example, if you have an Italian ancestor dating from 1861

Duomo, Milan
Personal photo

(when Italy unified) or later, you may qualify for Italian citizenship. If you are of Jewish ancestry, many European countries have repatriation schemes for those of Jewish descent whose families were displaced in WWII.

There are other ancestry routes, but they're hard to find. The trick is to research your family tree and if you find any relatively recent ancestors from a foreign country, start focusing on that country's immigration laws (and don't rely on hearsay because these laws change frequently). Don't just start researching different country's laws at random (unless you have carefully targeted countries) because the laws tend to not be well documented and they change frequently. Plus, officials from various countries are often unaware of their country's laws, but a decent immigration lawyer (after you have a target country) can sometimes help.

So you've researched your ancestry and maybe you find that you could claim citizenship in [some economically depressed EU country] but think "but I don't want to move to [some economically depressed EU country]." That's OK. The great thing about having an EEA (European Economic Area) passport in one EEA country is that you can usually legally live and work in any EEA country. Fancy London? Another EU country's passport will probably get you there.

So do you family tree. ancestry.com is a good place to start.

However, let's assume the common case of not having anyone you can marry and not having a useful ancestor (dead ancestors are so rarely useful, the ingrates!). In that case, you're looking at the work permit/Blue Card route.

Before I explain those, it's helpful to understand immigration in general. This lets you reason better about your opportunities.

I live in Paris, France. Not only is Paris the number one tourist city on the planet, but France is the number one tourist country on the planet. As much as I would love for the word citizenship to go the way of the word slavery and see borders drop, it's not realistic. If France opened the floodgates, they'd see their social systems overwhelmed and they'd collapse (interestingly, the countries people are leaving might also collapse to due to what's called "brain drain", but that's another story).

But France does allow people to move there. The trick is to demonstrate that you will benefit the country more than you will cost the country. The best way to pull this trick off is to have a strong skill (and usually a degree) in a STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine). Those are very high value jobs (from an economic standpoint). A psychology degree, on the other hand, while certainly being a worthy degree, isn't a high economic value degree and typically doesn't get you anywhere. So, in short, you have to show that you provide a positive economic value that is in short supply. Doctors, engineers, and software developers are always in short supply. Sadly, project managers and hair dressers aren't (trivia: there was an interesting time when hair dresser was on the Australian skill shortage list and thus eligible for immigration).

If you think you might have skills that can get you a work

Kalahari Desert, Botswana
Photo by Winfried Bruenken

permit, start reading my five part series on how to get a work permit. That will give you a solid strategy
for improving your résumé/CV and finding and approaching employees.

Barring being highly skilled, you may wish to read the young person's guide to moving abroad. That explains multiple ways that someone with little money, education, and few internationally marketable skills can still find ways of moving abroad. (Note: having at least a Bachelor's Degree significantly increases your opportunities). One of the most popular routes is teaching English abroad, .

Oh, and if you're the entrepreneurial type, the Netherlands has a visa for you. The UK has an entrepreneur visa too.

Finally, start reading about the European Blue Card.

The Blue Card is Europe's attempt to create a unified immigration policy to attract skilled workers. Ireland, the UK and Denmark have opted out, but for the others, if you qualify, it's much easier to get to Europe. In fact, Germany's Blue Card implementation is so generous that they government assumes that if you have a job offer with a large enough salary (usually around €45K or higher), than you must be qualified and can waltz right in. You usually have to have at least a BA for this (they make some exceptions for IT, but many German foreigner's offices seem to have missed this part of the law and it's a headache). Once in Europe with a Blue Card, you usually have to stay in the country for two or three years and then you can live and work in other EU countries (except the ones who have opted out). So if you have a BA, start making contacts in Germany and see what you can swing!

I hope that helps and gives you a start on figuring out your options. Let me know how things go!

Good luck,
Ovid

Mailbag: bringing a gay partner to a foreign country

Today's mailbag post is from a reader in France. She's recently moved back home to France after living in the US and she wants to bring her American partner over. As usual, I've anonymized the information and posted with her permission.

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Salut Ovid!

I've been reading your blog, which I find very interesting! Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge.

I am going to give you some info about me, my name is [redacted], I am [X years old] and I recently came back home to France after spending several years in [a large US city]. I graduated college with a BA and got an internship right after. Unfortunately I couldn't obtain a work visa so I had to pack my stuff and go! 

Long story short, during these years living in [a large US city], I was in a relationship with my partner and since I am back home we are trying to find a solution so she can spend some time in France. She is American, with a degree in Education. She has under her belt X years of teaching in [a different large American city].

I am recently the owner of a small company, do you have any idea if I can hire her? Even if  my services aren't related AT ALL to education?

I tried to look online, but it can get misleading.

Any advices would be gladly appreciated!!

Thank you!

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What a frustrating situation. I know of Americans who've tried to move back home to the US only to find that their newly married partner isn't going to get a visa without a lot of paperwork and money. A gay relationship isn't going to make it any easier and what my reader is proposing is generally illegal under the immigration laws of most countries.

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Hi [redacted],

I hope you're doing well. I'm sorry to hear about the situation with you and your partner :(

I don't think what you describe will work, but their may be another option for you. I'll explain.

I am certainly not an expert on French law in these matters, but I know that for the UK and other countries, to hire someone from outside the country (or EEA, in this case), you have to pass a "labor test". This test generally has several conditions:

• You could not find a local candidate to do the job
• You have advertised suitably for that job
• The candidate you want to offer the job to has the required skills to do the job

Those are the basics for the labor test. However, included in the labor test are often two interesting conditions:

• The company must demonstrate that the job actually needs to be filled
• The job must not be created for the sole purpose of employing someone from overseas

Violating any of these terms could be considered immigration fraud and could result in criminal penalties for you and your partner being barred from France. In this case, I would recommend that you contact an immigration lawyer.

Since you've been together for a long time, have you considered a PACS visa?. The Pacte Civil de Solidarité (PACS) is designed to confer some of the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. I thought about that when reading a bit about French immigration law where it's written (emphasis mine):

A long stay visa is required in particular by aliens who wish to obtain a stay card as a "visitor", « employee », « student », or « family » visa, especially for spouses or PACS partners (allowing same sex couplings)

So it's possible that you may be able to bring her over, but you'd have to make a serious commitment to doing so. There may be other routes for this, but that's all I can think of right now.

Good luck and let me know how things work out!

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More and more countries are realizing that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and they also realize that they're unfairly turning away potential immigrants as a result. Check the immigration laws of your target country. Even if they don't yet allow gay marriage, they often allow a "partner visa" of some sort as a way of allowing gay couples to remain together.

Mailbag: Bad time to move to Paris?

A married couple, Alice and Bob, sent me an email asking if they should return to France to live. Neither have French citizenship. One interesting tidbit is that Alice has Australian citizenship and one of her parents was Scottish.

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Dear Curtis,

After more than a year of a job search in the US, we find ourselves in a possible 'window' of opportunity to return to Paris, stop living on a temporary basis and start a family. We have no children, no ties to the US. But then there's this whole 'Euro/Global Crisis' thing.

The question we face is: should we give up economic safety and a pretty dull existence for a more enjoyable lifestyle (as far as we're concerned), but real risks related to employment and the future of France (is France the next Greece or even Spain?).

We hesitate between moving to Paris in the next 6 months or moving to a US city with a more European feel for a few years (saving Paris for a better economy). And we wonder when will it ever be "le bon moment"?

As an expert ex-pat, what do you think? Should we wait it out a few years, or pack our things for another adventure?

Sincerely,
Alice and Bob

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Alice and Bob have quite a dilemma, but there are interesting possibilities here. I don't know what their "window of opportunity" is, so it's difficult for me to be too specific, but here are some rough thoughts.

First, it's true that France is at a very strange point and we don't know what's going to happen. It appears that the next president of France will be François Hollande, a socialist with very little national political experience. He's made a lot of promises about spending without specifying where the money is going to come from. The markets are rather nervous about him and it remains to be seen how effective he will be. That being said, the financial crisis is global and France is the fifth largest economy in the world. If they a Greek-style meltdown, they're taking everyone else with them, so I don't know that staying out of France will help. I also don't think France will fall like that (famous last words).

There is never un bon moment in my view because we cannot guarantee the future. You'll have to judge for yourself how good the opportunity is and what steps you can take to protect yourself if it doesn't pan out. It's been my experience that people who don't seize opportunities when they present themselves are less likely to seize those opportunities in the future. It may turn out to be disastrous, but you'll never forget the experience.

Also, if it's a work permit opportunity, you need to find out if your spouse will be able to work. I believe that under some circumstances, the spouse of a French work permit holder is permitted to secure work, however, unemployment in France is currently at 10%, so it will be difficult. Be sure that both of you are as fluent as possible in French to maximize your chances.

If you take this chance, be sure to look into the European Blue Card. France is now offering the Blue Card and if you qualify for it, you can eventually get long-term European Residence Permits and the opportunity to live and work in most EU countries (the UK, Ireland and Denmark have opted out).

One interesting bit is where you pointed out that Alice has Australian citizenship and one of her parents is Scottish. Have you looked into the UK Ancestry Visa? Commonwealth citizens with at least one parent or grandparent with UK citizenship can apply. If accepted, you, your spouse and dependents can live and work in the UK for up to five years. After that, you can apply for permanent residency. After one more year, you can apply for citizenship. With that, you can live and work just about anywhere in the EU. I know you want France and the UK clearly isn't, but it's a road to it and the London/Paris Eurostar makes it easy to travel back and forth.

If you decide to stay in the US and are looking for a city with a "more European feel", may I suggest you check out Portland, Oregon? I love that city and I've quite a few European friends who've fallen in love with it too.

Good luck and let me know how it works out!

Mailbag: Moving to South America with a felony?

I'm going to start posting "mailbag" questions if the person who has contacted me gives permission. All email will be anonymized (unless they request otherwise) and edited to focus on the main question. Here's a very interesting email from someone who wants to move to South America.

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Hi Curtis,

I just came across your very interesting blog while doing some research and am wondering if I might bother you with a question:

I had a felony conviction for [a nonviolent crime] 20 years ago here in the U.S. I would like to relocate to South America. Is this an impossible dream?

Many thanks,
Bob

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Additional information from our email exchange: the "Bob" in question is a highly skilled professional, but he's an older worker. He's mentioned two countries he is particularly interested in. He probably has another 10 to 20 years of work left. Despite his felony conviction, he does not wish to pursue the Chilean immigration loophole. If he were twenty years younger and had no criminal record, I suspect he would have no trouble moving abroad with his profession.

Dear Bob,

This one is hard, but it's not insurmountable. It is, however, going to take a bit more effort than usual because I assume you want to minimize your chances for failure.

Consider the average person working for the government and processing plenty of work permit/immigrant visa requests. They usually have two things to consider:

• The benefits of your professional skills.
• The drawbacks of your personal situation.

I've been to your Web site and assuming your background can be easily verified, you have strong skills that I assume would be highly desirable. So what are the drawbacks?

• You're close to retirement age.
• You have a felony conviction.

Both of those are pretty serious. So the overworked, underpaid civil servant who evaluates your paperwork may very well glance at your application and say NOPE. They often have plenty of applications to process and the more they get done, the better they look and it's pretty easy to justify saying "no" to a convicted felon.

A twenty-year old non-violent felony is not an automatic bar for many countries, but if you don't work harder to maximize your chances, you're running a real risk of being denied. You have some very positive things on your resume, including suggestions that you benefit the community above and beyond just your normal profession, but all it takes is your application winding up in the hands of the wrong civil servant and you could be sunk.

So what do you do? I recommend a multi-pronged strategy partly aimed at ensuring that your visa application gets more attention than normal rather than a routine assessment by a clerk.

First, if you don't already know the language of your target country, learn it fluently. From the countries you mentioned, it's clear that Spanish is your first choice. If you can communicate effortlessly in your target language, it's a huge benefit. Also, if you have existing clientele with whom you communicate in that language, I would include this information (even if you can't mention who they are) to make it clear that you can hit the ground running.

Second, you live in a large city which is very likely to have cultural groups affiliated with your target countries. Go to those groups, meet the people, make it clear you have a genuine interest in their culture and start making contacts. You never know when you'll run into someone who says "my cousin works for the Director of Immigration for country X". Networking, being honest and open, and helping out where you are able can work wonders. Further, having a demonstrable interest in the culture can help.

Third, research immigration lawyers in your target country. There are two benefits here. The obvious one is that you want solid inside advice on how to enter their country legally. The less obvious one (and this is where strong research will really pay off) is finding one that has contacts. If you can work with a politically-connected lawyer, they can whisper into someone's ear and this can dramatically improve your chances. Yes, this is going to cost you money. It might cost you more money than you are willing to part with. You'll have to judge whether this risk is worth it. Be careful, though, as you could spend a large amount of money on someone who isn't able to help beyond normal legal advice. Even if you don't want to find a politically connected lawyer, make sure you get a lawyer anyway. I have a friend who recently entered the US and due to contacting a lawyer, managed to avoid a huge immigration mess about a particular situation they weren't aware of but the lawyer was.

Fourth, research your target countries like nobody's business. If you wind up chatting with an immigration official and he asks you what you think about the current government, not being able to name the President isn't going to help. You need to be completely reassuring that you're familiar with the culture. Also, if that happens, try to sidestep issues with politics and religion unless they make it very clear what their leanings are (and don't argue against their point of view!) I would probably try refocusing the conversation on how you want to help the country (and given your background, you have some strong assets there).

On a final note, since you've mentioned more than one country as a possible destination, be aware that just because one country turns you down doesn't mean that all of them will. Many countries will occasionally accept people with criminal records and often they will judge based on how long ago the crime occurred (a bonus for you) and the seriousness of the crime. You have an unusually strong strong post-conviction resume that will help tremendously. You're going to have to do a bit more work than usual to make this happen, but if you're determined, I'm sure you can.

Good luck and let me know how it turns out!