LEILA FADEL, HOST:
When President Trump started his second term, a lot of people talked about wanting to get citizenship in another country and a new passport. NPR's Mansee Khurana looked into whether people followed through.
MANSEE KHURANA, BYLINE: Benjamin Gorman says the decision to move to Spain actually had nothing to do with President Trump as an individual, but what would happen after his election.
BENJAMIN GORMAN: We knew our neighbors would not be safe for us to live around.
KHURANA: Gorman was a public school teacher in a small town in Oregon. He had been working on anti-racist curriculum and activism. He says that work led to death threats. And he talked to a friend at the FBI about this, who said that the organization would not be able to help if Trump was elected again.
GORMAN: So we knew we were going to have to get out. And so as soon as the election results came in, we were madly trying to get ready.
KHURANA: We reached out to the FBI for comment on Gorman's story and haven't heard back. Gorman moved his family to Barcelona just before Trump's inauguration. He applied for a digital nomad visa. Gorman also runs a small publishing company that he can operate remotely. Gorman is hoping to one day turn his Spanish visa into a passport.
GORMAN: I would be very happy to be a permanent resident of a place where the emphasis is on taking care of the entire populace.
KHURANA: Gorman wasn't the only one with this idea. Mo Syed is an immigration lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area. He says he gets calls almost every other day from people trying to get new passports. Syed says that the people who reach out to him are afraid that the U.S. has grown less tolerant.
MO SYED: I'll get an inquiry like, you know, hey, can you find us a suitable backup plan? We need another passport.
KHURANA: U.S. citizens applying for Irish passports rose 60% in the first two months of the year compared to the last. The United Kingdom has also recorded a record number of Americans applying for U.K. citizenship in the first three months of 2025.
BASIL MOHR-ELZEKI: I would say probably 5- to 10% actually relocate. Then 90% will keep it as a backup option in the event they need to.
KHURANA: Basil Mohr-Elzeki is an immigration lawyer based in Miami. He specializes in obtaining citizenship through investment, but not everyone can do this. Mohr-Elzeki says it can cost over a hundred thousand dollars.
MOHR-ELZEKI: The people that are typically attracted to this are the wealthy. But normally speaking, their natural tendency of things is, first, the ultrahigh net worth who'll be exploring this is quite niche. And then you'll have the upper middle class and the middle class start to be educated on these items and start to realize the benefits of it.
JAMIE DAVIS SMITH: The biggest benefit for me has been peace of mind.
KHURANA: Jamie Davis Smith of Washington, D.C., successfully obtained two passports in the last four years through ancestry - one for Poland and the other for Portugal.
SMITH: Especially given the current political situation, that I do have the automatic right to live and work somewhere else if I want to and, even more importantly, that my kids do.
KHURANA: She started the process of getting them when Trump was campaigning for a second term. But she hasn't moved her family just yet.
SMITH: I don't know where the point is that we would move. If things continue along the path they're on, we might reconsider.
KHURANA: With three passports to choose from, Smith feels secure she and her kids will find a better future somewhere.
Mansee Khurana, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF LONDON MUSIC WORKS AND NICK SQUIRES' "RUNAWAY (INSTRUMENTAL VERSION)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
