Trying to figure out if I actually want to move

Getting stuck on the terminology

I spent the better part of last Sunday scrolling through forums about US visa categories, and honestly, I feel like I know less now than when I started. Everyone throws around acronyms like EB-1A, NIW, or EB-5 as if they’re common knowledge. I was specifically looking into what it would take to potentially open a small business, maybe a restaurant, since I’ve been cooking for years and the office life is starting to drain me. I remember reading somewhere that you need a substantial amount of capital, and when I saw figures tossed around regarding the EB-5 program, my excitement dropped pretty quickly. It feels less like a simple move and more like you are entering some high-stakes financial arena where you have to prove your net worth before you even get to start your life.

The endless seminars and luxury hotels

I actually ended up signing up for one of those ‘comprehensive’ seminars held at the Banyan Tree Hotel just to see if a human could explain it better than a website. The room was freezing, and there were way more people there than I anticipated. They talked a lot about the shift in policies affecting F-1 student visas, which made me think about my cousin who is currently struggling with her D/S status. She’s been in the US for five years and just seems perpetually anxious about her legal standing. Watching the experts slide through their presentations—mostly about how the government is tightening the screws on international capital and tax investigations—made the whole idea of moving abroad feel incredibly exhausting. It isn’t just about packing bags; it’s about having a decade’s worth of financial records ready to be audited by someone in a government office who doesn’t care about your story.

Watching the market shift from a distance

There was a bit of talk during the break about how foreign investment in housing has plummeted, around 19% or so, according to some data they projected on the screen. It’s strange to think that my small, personal desire to move is connected to these massive geopolitical shifts. People in Hong Kong and parts of China are apparently moving assets and themselves at a scale I can’t even fathom. It made me feel a bit naive for thinking that ‘investing’ in a small restaurant might be a straightforward pathway. The scale of the money involved in these investment immigration programs is just astronomical. If you don’t have a few hundred thousand dollars just sitting in an accessible account, you aren’t really part of the conversation.

The reality of professional consultation

After the session, I grabbed a business card from one of the consultants, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever call. The cost for an initial consultation alone was a few hundred dollars, and that’s just to find out if you qualify to apply. It’s a recurring theme in this process—everything costs money before you’ve even made a move. You pay for the advice, you pay for the filings, and you pay for the waiting. I’ve been looking at my savings and comparing the costs of these visa paths, and I keep landing on the same thought: is it worth the stress? Sometimes I think about just taking a trip on a regular tourist visa to clear my head, but even that feels like it’s being watched more closely these days.

Not sure if I want to commit to the paperwork

I’m sitting here on a Tuesday night, laptop open, looking at a half-finished draft of a business plan that I’ll probably never submit. Every time I get close to understanding one requirement, I find another regulation that cancels out my previous plan. The uncertainty of it all—the fact that you can do everything ‘right’ and still be denied because the rules shifted while you were mid-application—is what gets to me. My neighbor mentioned they had success with a different category years ago, but when they described their process, it sounded nothing like what I’m seeing now. The landscape has changed so much. I think I’m going to put the papers in a drawer for a few weeks and just try to ignore the urge to leave for a while. Maybe it’s just the burnout talking.