What is a Conscientious Emigrant?

In 2024, I began offering my services as a consultant for people who want to leave the US, and specifically those who want to enter their new home nations in a conscientious way.

What do I mean by conscientious?

Definitions of the word vary, but the meaning that best embodies my intent here is reflected by a combination of the terms “scrupulous,” “principled” and “doing what is right.”

Humans have been migrating, whether in search of opportunity, to evade crisis, or both, forever.

Let me be very clear in stating that I fully support people’s right to migrate in search of a better life, and I do not agree with any anti-immigration positions levied at any population.

When I decided to expand my consulting business to include emigration support for people seeking to leave the US, however, I also needed to consider the impact emigration has on the global view of Estadounidense (people from the US), and my own conscience.

(SN: I don’t call Estadounidense “Americans” for a very obvious reason that seems to still elude a lot of people — there are three continents that make up “The Americas” and the US is simply one nation within one America.)

When I thought about supporting folks leaving the US, it was important to me to qualify the who and even more importantly, the “how."

There are myriad examples of historical migration patterns that were anything but conscientious.

I’m not sure I need to spell it out, but I will: colonization, gentrification, and even certain forms of isolationism often create clusters of problems with longstanding ramifications, including violent conflict.

I thought about the archetypes I’ve seen within online “expat” communities and here on Cozumel, and what I did not want to facilitate.

It’s the wealthy emigrant who buys a huge plot of isolated forest and clearcuts, to the detriment of local water quality and biodiversity, in order to build some elaborate status symbol of an estate, simultaneously “bargaining” down local labor and products.

It’s the “expats” who rush to a US enclave in a Spanish-speaking country, contribute nothing to local businesses, and demand everyone speak English.

It’s the retirement age gringo who has more than enough to support himself but uses his extra capital to set up a business competing with locals just to “have something to do,” and then brags about employing locals for pennies.

I’ve met these people. They are more common than you might think. And while I am not going to tell people they can’t do and be this way, I don’t have to work with them. I’m not interested in using my expertise, time, and experience to contribute to the problems they create and I don’t want to work with people who have so little concern for the way their presence affects the people around them.

I also think that in the long-term, to the extent Estadounidense are still welcome anywhere in the world, that tolerance is quickly fading. In fact, my own immigration process shone a light on how tired some Mexican immigration officers are of people from the US deciding to make their homes here.

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