The UK is witnessing an unprecedented rise in immigration from the United States
After Donald Trump’s election victory last year, Kelley Ahern, from Virginia on America’s East Coast, knew she had to get out of the country.
“The first time he came into office, I decided to look into getting my Irish passport,” Ahern, 68, who had Irish grandparents, told The i Paper. By the time she got the document, Trump had been in office for 18 months and it was “pretty clear that as stupid as he was, he didn’t know enough to do any real harm”.
This time around it felt different. After Trump’s first term, Ahern thought Republicans would have a “sour taste” in their mouths from all of his “shenanigans”, especially after the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.
“I thought the party would come together and decide that they weren’t going that route anymore,” she said. “Instead, they hunkered down.”
So when Trump won again, it was the last straw for Ahern. “We’re on two teams now and it has nothing to do with political parties,” she said. “The division has gotten to fever pitch. We don’t have leaders in this administration who know how to turn down the temperature.”
Ahern started thinking seriously about moving – finding someone to rent her house, speaking with an immigration lawyer about requirements, and giving her employer an official retirement date.
This summer, she visited England to scope out where she would live, settling on York. As an Irish citizen, she is now able to live in the UK.
“I’ll leave the US the first week of April 2025,” she said. “I’ll spend April to September in France, then September to April in York. I’ll be taking long-term lets in both places because I need time to build a credit profile in England to be able to rent without the bulk of rent being asked up front.”
Ahern is not alone. The UK is witnessing an unprecedented rise in immigration from the US. In the 12 months leading to March 2025, more than 6,600 American citizens applied for UK residency or nationality, the highest number since comparable records began in 2004.
In the first three months of 2016, at the start of Trump’s first term, 1,072 applications for British citizenship were made, compared with 1,931 during the first three months of his second term (a 12 per cent rise on the previous three months), rising to 2,194 applications in the second quarter of 2025.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in Americans wanting to move to the UK,” David Kutas, an immigration and relocation professional, told The i Paper. He said that reasons for moving varied, but politics had “certainly been a factor and motivation behind a great number of US moves”.
Tautvydas Sutkus, a British immigration lawyer, said some of his clients had moved from America to the UK for their careers, access to public services and perceived safety, but that in his own practice, and based on Home Office statistics, “politics has been cited as a major reason”.
For Ahern, the move was fairly straightforward because she could prove ancestral ties to Ireland, but for many, it is much harder.
It is expensive, too. In addition to visa costs (which vary depending on the type of visa) and the bureaucracy to obtain one, a person must typically prove they have funds to support themselves.
“The biggest hurdle is always being granted a visa to come over,” Kutas said. “The requirements on incomes and qualifications are quite high in the UK, which often stops prospective moves from the start.
“Equally, the larger relocation process is a far larger challenge than many expect, with challenges around housing, school changes and British bureaucracy often being highly stressful and complex,” he said. “One of the largest challenges in more recent years has been the lack of rental housing on offer in regional locations.”
Rebecca Barath, who had lived in the US for 32 years, although she was born and raised in Norway, was itching to return to Europe after Trump’s latest win.
“Fifteen years ago, this country started changing,” Barath, 60, who also has a British passport, told The i Paper. “People started getting the internet and you could understand what people thought – their true colours showing.”
Barath said she observed blatant racism, hatred and misogyny like never before, which got worse over time. “It rose under Trump, becoming normal and accepting to be hateful because he projected it and created division, and that made it okay.”
Her American husband, who served in the military, also did not like what he was seeing. “It has hurt his heart,” she said. “And he was watching me shut down completely. He eventually said, ‘we’re done.’”
Days after the November 2024 election, the couple started preparing to leave, ultimately spending around £30,000 to move from Washington to the Isle of Wight.
“The relief of being away I feel so much,” Barath said.
However, upcoming law changes could lead to fewer people coming from the US to Britain on work visas, according to Ono Okeregha, director at the Immigration Advice Service.
“The route to settlement and citizenship will be longer,” he told The i Paper. “The Government announced this week the route will be 10 years as standard but shorter for positive contributions. Overall, it [numbers of people coming to the UK from the US] will likely decline from that perspective, or at least for naturalisation applications. Descent applications may stay similar for a while (but depends on political events). I think the initial rush is probably over.”
Aside from Britain, other top destinations for Americans hoping to emigrate are Portugal, Spain, Canada, Italy, Ireland and France, according to a survey of over 116,000 people considering leaving last year.
For Amanda Dobbs, an American teaching assistant, the decision to move to Britain in 2021 was difficult, but one she would make all over again.
Dobbs, 41, moved to Wiltshire with her British-born husband and two American children from Florida after watching how Trump’s politics had led to an increase in hate speech, racism, misogyny and lies, she said.
However, it was only after a student armed with a gun entered the school where she taught that she told her husband she could no longer live like this.
“The lockdown was terrifying and something I never wanted to go through again,” she said.
The process of moving to Britain was difficult, however. Even though she has a university degree, an in-demand job, and is married to a British man, it took over three years and more than £15,000 to obtain a visa.
“The process was an expensive, stressful nightmare,” she said thanks to administrative errors that took a toll on her. Over the three years she was detained twice by Border Force upon entering the country, given inaccurate advice from an immigration support service, was made to return back to the US due to mistakes made by her lawyer, and was questioned for hours after the birth of her second child in a British hospital about her right to be in the UK.
“I felt so defeated and unwanted,” she said. “I couldn’t work. I couldn’t drive. I can’t do anything for over three years.”
Now she is settled, she says she is enjoying her life in the UK. She is currently working as a teaching assistant even though she is a qualified, highly experienced teacher.
“It’s great in some ways, but I’m paid minimum wage for a job I’m overqualified for,” she said. “The knock-on effect of me making very little money means we’ve not been able to afford things we used to be able to afford. We’re still saving up for me to get my driver’s licence and a second car. This means I’m reliant on public transportation or my husband to drive me everywhere.”
