'MAGA violence' and 'domestic terrorism' are driving 'dual citizenships' among America's wealthy: report

21 September 2022

After the U.S. Supreme Court announced its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and officially overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years, Billie Joe Armstrong — long-time lead singer for the punk/alternative rock band Green Day — expressed his outrage by telling a crowd in London that he planned to renounce his U.S. citizenship and move to the U.K. The London crowd cheered with applause when Armstrong declared that he no longer wanted to live in “that miserable f*****g excuse for a country.”

Whether or not the 50-year-old Armstrong will actually follow through remains to be seen, but if he did apply for citizenship in another developed country, he would have a good shot at being accepted — as the Green Day frontman is incredibly wealthy. Immigration laws in the U.K., Canada, Continental Europe, Australia and other parts of the developed world can be notoriously difficult for U.S. citizens, but they are easier to navigate if one has a lot of money. And according to a report by Mother Jones’ Michael Mechanic, wealthy Americans who are worried about the United States’ future have been seriously pursuing their dual citizenship options.

Mechanic, in an article published by Mother Jones on September 21, reports that the United States’ “societal dysfunction has progressed to the point where many well-heeled Americans are looking for an escape hatch.”

“This is not a time of optimism in America,” Mechanic reports. “People are reeling from inflation, gun violence, partisan rancor, race-baiting, a ruthlessly divisive Supreme Court decision, the long tail of a pandemic, and the very real prospect of political violence. A significant majority of the public, polls suggest, thinks the nation is headed in a bad direction. Nearly three-quarters of the people NBC News polled in August said as much, and more than a third predicted that things would get worse over the next five years.”

Mechanic cites David Lesperance, a Canada-born attorney who now lives in Poland, as an example of someone who specializes in “arranging foreign citizenships for extraordinarily wealthy people, from athletes and celebrities to founders, investors, and corporate bigwigs with assets ranging from about $25 million to $20 billion.”

“Over the years, Lesperance — who now lives in Gdynia, Poland — has helped hundreds of ultra-high-net-worth Americans relinquish their U.S. citizenship, usually in order to escape the long arm of the IRS,” Mechanic explains. “The United States is the only country besides Somalia that imposes taxes based on citizenship, not residency. Other U.S. clients just want a contingency plan — a legal ‘go bag’ containing an extra passport or two — that a family might deploy if the taxman ever gets too aggressive.”

Mechanic goes on to report that Lesperance and a Massachusetts-based attorney he often works with, Melvin Warshaw, have recently been observing a new trend that Lesperance describes as “clients engaging us not for tax reasons, but rather, to have an alternative should the U.S. turn into MAGA America.”

One American who really did renounce her U.S. citizenship is rock/R&B icon Tina Turner, who speaks fluent German and now lives in Switzerland. But according to Warshaw, Americans who are looking at dual citizenship options for political reasons aren’t necessarily planning to give up their U.S. citizenship. Warshaw says of these Americans, “They’re saying, ‘I want options. I don’t mind paying high income tax. It’s just things are getting real hot in the kitchen, and I want the ability to bug out — to go somewhere else for a while, because I don’t know what’s going to happen in the 2022 election. And I have little kids. I want a safe place for them.’”

Mechanic notes that “recent developments, particularly the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, have fueled demand for dual citizenship even among the non-wealthy,” adding, “But securing one is pricey if you don’t have a relative who is a citizen elsewhere.”

According to Lesperance, affluent Americans who are looking into dual citizenship with other countries fear political violence, authoritarianism and instability in the U.S.

Lesperance told Mother Jones, “There’s a significant fear there. They look at the daily news, they see, ‘OK, (Supreme Court Justice Samuel) Alito said this (the Dobbs decision) only deals with abortion, and (Justice Clarence) Thomas goes on in his dissent to say, no, we’re winding up for this. We’re throwing it back to the states.’ And then, they see politicians talking about a nationwide ban on abortion.”

Mechanic reports, “They are concerned, roughly in this order, Lesperance says, about the state of American democracy —

voter suppression, rejection of election outcomes, MAGA subversion — the outlawing of abortion and what the (Supreme) Court may do next, and the specter of domestic terrorism and mass shooting events. They aren’t necessarily liberal. One client, a billionaire hedge-funder who would call himself a Reagan Republican, Lesperance says, just didn’t want his little kids to have to deal with the trauma of active shooter drills at school…. The new clients also include ‘a bunch’ of former high-level government officials who served under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.”

Lesperance told Mother Jones, “Remember, to a MAGA, you’re a RINO if you served for W….. (They) really got freaked out, not only by Dobbs, but also, by Trump’s announcement that he’s gonna get rid of the civil service and replace it with loyal flunkies.”

Lesperance stressed that these clients — both liberals and non-MAGA conservatives — haven’t necessarily given up on the U.S., but they are looking for a possible escape route if things turn really ugly.

Lesperance told Mother Jones “They’re sitting there saying, ‘I have a giant target on my back. So, yes, I’m gonna vote. Yes, I’m gonna join organizations and fund organizations to get voter registration. I’ll call that fire prevention, but I’m also gonna get fire insurance. And you know, depending on the outcome in the midterms, and what outcome comes in the general, I want to be able to bug out — and I want to take my family.’”

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