Since President Donald Trump took office, elite Americans and academics left the country. A quarter of those who responded to a recent survey said they would like to get out of the country over the next five years. And European countries welcome them.
According to data published by the UK Home Office, between March 2024 and March 2025, 6,000 Record American citizens asked to become British citizens or to live and work in the country indefinitely. In April, more than 300 scientists applied to the SAFE Place for Science France program, which promises “a safe and stimulating environment for scientists wishing to continue their research in complete freedom”.
Americans seek to emigrate for the same reasons as immigrants have historically chosen to come to the United States: political and economic anxiety and instability in their country of origin. The immigration script of the last century was overthrown and, for academics, in particular, the loss of government funding led them to seek intellectual freedom and the ability to conduct research elsewhere.
Although the justification for emigration is clear, the potential consequences of their departure are not. What happens when a critical mass of educated middle-class professionals leaves the country? The releases of eminent people can have unexpected effects on a given country, embarrassing the regimes they have left, adding human capital to the places where they are welcomed. In addition, when people emigrate, their absence consolidates power around the regimes they have left. In other words, politics more reflects the ideologies and values of those who remain.
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During South African apartheid, famous musicians such as singer Miriam Makeba were forced to go into exile as the only way to express themselves safely against injustices. Makeba was very vocal in its criticism of the apartheid government at a time when most black women were silenced by discriminatory laws, including the laws adopted that have restricted movements, and have denied the right to have land and even the custody of their children.
In 1960, she left South Africa and continued to use her voice – both as a musician and activist – to talk about the atrocities of her country of origin. His 1963 Speech at the United Nations called for the world silence on apartheid and encouraged world leaders to act by supporting the fighters of freedom. In response, the apartheid regime revoked its citizenship and passport.
Because Makeba was so loved for her music and admired courage, she obtained passports from nine different countries, including Belgium, Ghana, Tanzania, Cuba, Algeria and Guinea. Among her American peers and friends, there was Nina Simone, Marlon Brando, Cicely Tyson, Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong. Makeba could not go home in 1990, at the invitation of the recently published Nelson Mandela, perhaps the most famous prisoner of the apartheid regime.
Like Makeba, the trumpeter Hugh Masekela was also considered as persona non grata by the apartheid regime, who considered the artistic expression by blacks as an act of violence. Masekela was forced to leave the house after the 1960 Sharpeville massacres which led to the death of 69 people and in -depth political disorders across the country. Makeba and Masekela, briefly married, also collaborated on anti-apartheid music. Their impact on politics in their homeland, even from abroad, was powerful, despite the regime, which makes them difficult to interact with your family. Their long-awaited anti-a-faire concert in 1980 in Lesotho was canceled after the apartheid diet in South Africa put pressure on Lesotho and Botswana.
While their music played an essential role in the bustle of freedom, exile artists have been faced with many professional challenges and lost opportunities. Makeba’s success has come at a great cost; Two of her children died in exile and she could not go home to bury them.
South Africa has also suffered from the loss of critical votes. All those who have entered exile did not return home or could not continue to speak from abroad. Those who returned sometimes lacked the professional skills necessary to build a life, after spending their first years fighting for their survival. And in the United States, they were often restricted because the segregation of Jim Crow reflected many injustices that they have known at home in South Africa.
While the South Africans were pushed, apartheid has become stronger and more violent for dissidents. Even the children who tried to fight against racist laws were killed or beaten as in the uprising of young people from Soweto in 1976. In 1977, the joint song of Makeba and Masekela, “Soweto Blues”, was a very popular protest song on the massacre and a spine next to the regime. Despite being prohibited in South Africa, collectively, their music served as a soundtrack of the anti-apartheid movement.
While pushing dissidents can allow an oppressive regime to consolidate power or adapt the current political climate of a nation, it can have a huge cost – as America has learned it at the height of the Cold War. Consider the case of the brilliant Chinese scientist Qian Xuesen in the 1950s. Qian had studied at MIT and Caltech and had become a full professor in the two universities. He then co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA in 1939, becoming one of the best rocket science experts working for the United States government. The US government has not considered its Chinese citizenship as a national security threat because the United States and China were allies during the Second World War.
This relationship changed after the war. In 1945, the revolutionary leader Mao Zedong declared China a communist country. Chinese nationals living in the United States were suddenly considered to be state enemies. A new director of JPL, where Qian worked now, reported that some members of the laboratory were probably communists. There was fear and suspicion due to the growing Cold War and the rise of McCarthyism. Although there was no evidence of reprehensible acts from Qian, he was put in internal residence for five years until his deportation to China in exchange for the repatriation of the American pilots captured in the Korean War, in 1955 by the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Qian’s politically motivated exile did not do much to help the Cold War of America and rather took advantage of Communist China. In 1958, he became a member of the Communist Party and rekindled his career. Before his arrival, China had no solid rocket science program. Qian became the “father of the aerospace and the Chinese rocket”. He helped develop the Dongfeng ballistic missile and the Chinese space program. The American secretary of the Navy, Dan A. Kimble, described the departure of Qian “The most stupid thing that this country has ever done. He was no more communist than me, and we forced him to go there. ”
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In short, countries are growing huge artistic or scientific talents at their expense.
American Brain Brund will have the American decades of innovation and technology back, and overcome the advantage of America in education and other major areas. American scientists have been ahead of the rest of the world on health care and technological advances such as AI. Millions of people have long considered the United States as a lighthouse of education and intellectual hope. History shows that an exodus of American academics will probably accelerate the collapse of American education, not preserve it.
Departure can also have negative impacts on the quality of democracy in the United States. The commitment of citizens through various perspectives and ideological lines can lead to a better and more inclusive society, ultimately leading to a stronger democracy. Consider the beloved statue of freedom, a cultural benchmark, that immigrants were not only welcome, but constituted the work fabric of America. In addition, the release of American elites and academics, many of whom are voters, can decrease their voice and citizen commitment, resulting in the decline in the quality of democracy.
The historical lesson is an edifying story. While academics plan to leave because current government policies do not reflect their ideals, the void created by their absence can be filled by people whose values align more with the government. For example, in the wake of Qian’s departure, anti -communist feeling has skyrocketed and the hunts of McCarthyist witches spread. And it took three decades before Mabeka could return to his homeland. If academics choose to come back, they could find America more conservative, and perhaps more violent, more violent than it was.
Indeed, the defense of democracy is a best played game on the lawn at home.
Chipo Dendere is a political scientist and assistant professor of African studies at Wellesley College.
Kellie Carter-Jackson is a historian and Michael and Denise Kellen ’68, an associate professor of African studies at the Wellesley College.
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