and judging from your costs you were essentially not using it. I have a wife with many medical issues and healthcare costs are one third of our monthly budget. Just something to think about. What country would you want to be in if everything in your life goes south.

Perhaps you should consider that OP is not yet decided on the U.S.A. He's doing a comparison of different countries. My replies are designed with him in mind, not you. Which is to say that your contribution to the discussion is certianly appreciated, just not by me. Hugs!

Okay, so I don't understand the point of this response, still. It's obvious that OP is deciding on a country to move to, considering that was the entire premise of this thread. You said paperwork will protect OP from ICE, misleading OP. I corrected that. My response was also with OP in mind, considering he is not as experienced with American life as an American is. Your appreciation of my contributions does not matter. What point are you trying to make right now?

No. I said that retaining an immigration lawyer AND having the proper paperwork would mitigate the risk of ICE.

And it will. Here's my analysis of the situation.

tl;dr: ICE is busy with other things, and will be for some time.

ICE pushes (and exceeds) the boundaries of both good taste and the legal framework of the Constitution. But it's not random. There's a method to the madness.

Now, check the headlines from the last week.

No, really! Please? Take a moment. Search for ICE in a fresh incognito browser, one that doesn't track your personal preferences. Grab a newsfeed from Google or DuckDuckGo. Look at stories from the past week. Two weeks. Don't see much, do ya? No high-profile demonstrations, no murder in the street, there's even news of a detention center getting cancelled.

ICE is undergoing a shift. It's intentional. The TSA wasn't being funded during the shutdown, so ICE is now 'helping' out at the airports. They are on their best behavior. Squeaky clean, just trying to keep things running. Yay! It's not an accident that ICE, of all organizations, was called in to help. (National Guard could offer the same level of expertise, which is absolutely zero.)

Another notable development is that Trump has, several times now, floated the idea of having ICE at the polls, to ensure election integrity. Again and again, Trump babbles about the dangers of mail-in voting and stuffed ballot boxes. And the misinformation parrots are all over that bandwagon, sowing seeds of doubt in the already gullible MAGAts.

So, here's the play: Keep the world distracted by blowing up the oil supply. Shift ICE to high-visibility roles. Deploy them to the polling booths in the fall. Steal as much of the midterm elections as you can. Get a rubber-stamp majority in the House, Senate and Supreme Court. At that point, you can do whatever you want. Pass an amendment to the Constitution revoking the 22nd amendment? Sure, at the very least.

But whatever the case, ICE's focus is no longer on terrorizing students in blue cities. They'll be present and visible now, but they won't be conducting raids en masse. They will now be low-key policing American citizens while pretending to be helpful, multi-purpose federal agents. Nazis disguised as Boy Scouts.

Right now, Illian Omar is leading the fight by holding up funding for DHS. Ilhan Omar said her caucus will 'oppose all funding' for immigration enforcement unless militarized policing ends. She understands what's going on. She'll lose, probably, just because sometimes politics is heart-breaking like that....

Wrong and dumb

Your analysis is ridiculous, incorrect and dangerous to OP. ICE are still active and still abducting people. They kidnapped a woman in front of her children after she passed the security checkpoint in the airport just hours after being placed there the first time. Plus, like I said before, a lawyer and paperwork MIGHT get you back out of the detention center after a few weeks, IF they decide to let you out and not just say they lost you, or ignore the order anyway. Everything in between those two times is totally up to the agents in how they want to treat you. You're an idiot and have no place offering advice to anyone considering moving to this country

Are universities in China and Japan that average? I'm asking since I never felt that American universities were that good, and you've referred to them as really good.

Honestly outside of the top handful in both countries I’d say yes. I take this from my own experiences in all three as well as what colleagues tell me. US universities have problems but producing good learners isn’t one. I went to a state school and I think it was better than similarly private schools.

Idk what this means. It cost 30$ in Japan 6-700$ in USA. How much I use it doesn’t change the monthly bill. Co-pay plus percentage in the US in standard. Really unsure what you mean.

In Japan it does charge 30% for adults so I bet some horrible sickness would be expensive.

Good question. I’ll think on that

in the us its a deductible followed by a percentage up to a maximum out of pocket. So you pay 100% up to the deductible which can be a grand or several. Then you pay 20% till max out of pocket which is over 7 grand at this point. That is beyond monthy costs that are creeping toward a grand per person. This is beyond the fact of denials which don't get taken away from your max out of pocket. So it cost 2 grand a month for my wife and I where my employer payed my monthly costs in 2024. Now keep in mind I have a sick wife so we go max out of pocket every year. But yeah if japan had no max out of pocket we would be screwed at 30%. One surgery would sink you.