r/LGBTireland • u/FileAccording6438 • Nov 14 '24
American hoping to immigrate to Ireland
Aloha all!! My names Gray I'm a 57 year old gay American hoping to Immigrate to Ireland as soon as possible. The election has pushed me into a lifelong dream of moving to Ireland. Sadly I am one generation away from obtaining citizenship. I am hoping for advice on how to accomplish the move. And what cities to consider. I have just sold my home on the big island of Hawaii so I should be able to purchase a small Place and hopefully find meaningful employment. America is no longer a safe place for our people! So please be kind and advise me and anything and everything I might need to know. Any help will be eternally appreciated. Thank you
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u/loljkimmagonow Nov 14 '24
Sounds like your only way in has to be through employment since you're non eu and have no ties to Ireland
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u/FileAccording6438 Nov 14 '24
https://iasservices.my.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.ImageServer?id=015P90000085iNE&oid=00D0Y000000Z8jM it was suggested I contact these people anyone have an opinion?
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u/loljkimmagonow Nov 14 '24
Since you seem to not have alot of information at the moment, why not. They're very likely to ask for a fee though, I've dealt with them before.
Side note: You're going to need to do alot of research because immigration in general is very hard and you need to get your ducks in a row. Check out these subreddits and maybe ask there aswell: r/MoveToIreland r/AmerExit
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u/FileAccording6438 Nov 14 '24
Fee is 200lbs for half hour and my head is spinning from everything happening here to trying to Understand any of this. Thank you for the info I'll attempt to weed through it . I'm Just praying it's not a lost cause . This country is going to change very quickly for the worse I'm Hoping the rest of the world understands how terrifying this is. Any more info you can think of please share ! Thank you again
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u/loljkimmagonow Nov 14 '24
Just take a breather. You have loads of time to figure out what you want to do. Don't make any rash decisions. There's loads of fear mongering going on in America since Trump won it seems. And the majority of it is just mass histeria. I can't help but chuckle at the amount of Americans, both now and back in 2016, that have made posts like this. And I'd bet the majority of them never even moved states, let alone countries. You have one of the most powerful passports on the planet, if things really get as bad as people claim, you have loads of immigration options that many people in much worse circumstances simply don't because they happen to not be American citizens
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u/FileAccording6438 Nov 14 '24
It's not actually fear mongering I have seen what and who these people are. I have been thinking about this move for four years . I've already sold my home in anticipation of the situation. I just didn't actually believe it would happen . I am ready now . Thank you for your helpm
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u/loljkimmagonow Nov 14 '24
Best of luck. Hope you've got a good bit of cash out of it, house prices in ireland are jaw dropping. Also forgot to say, it's £200 (or just pounds) not 200lbs haha
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u/DataDrivenDreaming Nov 18 '24 edited Nov 18 '24
I had the same reaction as you, in fact, I am trying to move too, going the student visa route to hopefully a critical skills visa. The trans community will have it the worse, and then anyone that the administration doesn’t consider “normal gays” as the new vice president put it. We will all possibly face discrimination like what was experienced in the 90s. The worst part for me is how my family that voted for Trump has no empathy for my fears. It makes me wonder, did they have this fear when Biden was in office? That their economy (instead of civil rights) and future were going to be destroyed like our civil liberties might be? The truth is, comparative suffering isn’t helpful but I feel like that’s what this two party system has become, my hurt is more important then your hurt. Despite what Trump says, there should be room for all our needs to be taken care of, both sides. Something what gives me courage is that we don’t know how this will play out. As long as we are still “here” we must fight for our rights.
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u/FileAccording6438 Nov 18 '24
Unfortunately at 57 with adhd I never finished my undergrad. At this point I don’t know if there even a possibility. As a veteran I am heart broken that a country I was willing to give my life for has done this .
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u/DataDrivenDreaming Nov 18 '24
Thank you for your service. I am a veteran as well, who was discharged under the discriminatory Don't Ask Don't Tell policy that didn't allow me to serve openly as a gay man. I have ADHD and PTSD...at 46 I've gone back to school and hope to graduate this year from a university here in California and then I hope to springboard into a masters program in Ireland. I worked so hard to overcome all my challenges to get to where I am so I empathize with your struggle. I don't say all this to compare our struggles...comparative suffering is not the goal. I only want to say that you're not alone. We'll get through this.
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u/FileAccording6438 Nov 18 '24
I’m from so cal as well . I’m pre don’t ask don’t tell I’m a dessert storm vet. i never had treatment for my ADHD so I bounced from subject to subject and could never handle the math or language requirements to finish my undergrad. I just sold my place in Hawaii and am staying with family in Washington thinking I’ll have to move to Philly and wait it out .
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u/Coconut2674 Nov 14 '24
I think r/movetoireland is your best bet for info on moving here. I'd ask a question, people there will be generally better informed and able to help. I would say maybe have specifics in your post as well. Ireland wouldn't have anywhere like Hawaii weather wise, would you prefer a big city, or a village, what are your skills for employment?
Housing is a big issue here, and because of the nature of being a small island with a relatively large, urban population, it'll be probably more expensive than Oahu. You'll need to have a rough budget so people can give you some guidance - eg - average rent in Dublin is €1,900pm, and the average house price is €500,000 - our wages are also higher to reflect some of this (not by much).
If you've any questions about LGBT life in Ireland it's definitely more for this sub, and it's very helpful.
In terms, briefly of moving here, you'll need a critical skills visa, or you'll need to be sponsored by an employer here. If you need a mortgage, at 57 you more than likely won't get one, or will have to wait until you arrive.
Asking for anything and everything you need to know is way too open ended, and to be honest a little naive.
An issue you may face, is age - retirement here is 65/66 - we don't tend to work beyond that and a visa may be awkward given that you'll be switching to a pension and using state resources without having paid the tax - health are is largely free here for example (aside from drug prescription), but we pay through income taxes for it.
I would also say, yes things are dark in the US, and Ireland is, so far, immune from these shifts, but it represents a significant lifestyle change for you, and the grass is not always greener. I would do A LOT of research even into just daily life here.
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u/alloutofbees Nov 14 '24
You haven't shared the only relevant information to this situation, which is your degrees and work experience.
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u/Grantrello Nov 14 '24
I have just sold my home on the big island of Hawaii so I should be able to purchase a small Place and hopefully find meaningful employment.
I hope you have a place to live and a plan for the meantime because even if immigration to Ireland is a possibility for you, it will be a very long process. You say you're not planning to "just show up" but I just want to be real with you that it kind of sounds like that's your expectation by the way you've presented this. Perhaps not literally, but your expected timeline seems far shorter than is realistic for moving to another country if you do not have existing EU citizenship.
Unless you have a highly in-demand job (on the critical skills list) there is very little chance that you will qualify for a visa to move here, and even if you will qualify, the timeline for these things can often be years.
As others have said, you will need to do a lot of research and preparation if you are serious about this. I am an Irish national who went through the immigration process to bring my partner to Ireland (De-Facto Partner, so not yet married) and even that was a long and difficult process. If you find r/MoveToIreland overwhelming then I'll be honest, you're going to have a lot of work to do to understand the realities of immigration to Ireland.
I will just also note that some responses may seem a little irritated because Americans have a tendency to vastly underestimate the difficulty of the legal immigration process to European countries and there's a feeling that a lot of Americans have the subconscious belief that just because they're Americans the immigration officials will roll out the red carpet. You'll have to go through the same process as anyone else and there is not an automatic entitlement to be granted a visa.
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u/Team503 Nov 14 '24
Hi, I'm an American immigrant that moved to Ireland. Let me sketch it out for you - the links provided for you are accurate but they're infodumps and not easily processed.
There are only a few ways to move here legally. They are, in no particular order:
- Citizenship by descent - grandparents or closer, though there is one specific and odd circumstance in which great-grandparents can qualify you. Details here: https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving-country/irish-citizenship/irish-citizenship-through-birth-or-descent/
- Refugee - you're an American, you don't qualify no matter what.
- Education - You can get permits to come here to attend university. I will assume at your age that this isn't an option, especially since the permit only gets you here to get your degree, and then gives you one year to find a job.
- Artist Permit - If you qualified, you'd already know.
- Retirement - This is popular with older Americans. No age restrictions, but must prove 50,000e per person in passive income and have around 350,000e in liquid funds available. Doesn't lead to permanent residency or citizenship. It is illegal to work on a retirement permit, and if they catch you they will summarily eject you from the country, and likely you won't be let back in for at least a decade.
- Work Permit - This is how 99.95% of Americans that aren't descendants get here. You must qualify with a skill on the Critical Skills list and then find a job willing to sponsor you. The actual process is literally just apply for jobs over here and tell them you're a US citizen who is seeking sponsorship for a Critical Skills Employment Permit (CSEP). I will tell you right now that this is extremely hard to accomplish. It takes some people years to find a job that will sponsor them, and some people never do.
- If you get here on a CSEP, you have to stay with that employer for the full first year. In the second year, you can change employers but only if that employer will sponsor a new permit for you. The only exception is layoffs, and even then you will still need a new employer to sponsor a new permit for you. This is a Stamp 1 immigration permission.
- After two years, you're eligible for a Stamp 4 permit. This is, in American terms, basically a Green Card - the right to live and work in Ireland without specific sponsorship.
- After three years on a Stamp 4, you can apply for naturalisation.
That's it. There's a few edge cases, but you'd know if you qualified for them. The current Critical Skills list is here: https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/what-we-do/workplace-and-skills/employment-permits/employment-permit-eligibility/highly-skilled-eligible-occupations-list/
You can find out most everything you want to know in an easy to read and understand format on citizensinformation.ie which is the official government site.
You do not need an immigration lawyer or service. They are a waste of money, and a great many of them are outright scams. The ONLY circumstance you might consider a real immigration lawyer is if you have an unusual legal issue that might prevent immigration - a felony conviction, for example.
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u/Arubesh2048 Nov 14 '24 edited Nov 16 '24
Fellow American here. This will not be what you want to hear, but it’s important to understand. Immigration in general is both very expensive and very difficult, all the more so for Americans going elsewhere. Most places don’t want immigrants, and want American immigrants even less. You’re not going to be able to claim that LGBTQ people are persecuted here for asylum, so don’t even try it. Any country would tell you “you’re not persecuted at the national level, you’ve got state level protections in about half your country. Go there instead.”
You need a residency visa to be able to live somewhere, and the best ways to get those are via work visas or student visas. As in, you need a job offer from an Irish company in order to obtain a work visa, or you need to be enrolled in an Irish university to obtain a student visa.
You can’t start with move to Ireland, then get work. Technically, you could obtain a guest visa, which would allow you to just visit using your American passport for 90 days. But good luck if you think you can get a job in less than 90 days. And if you managed it, you’d need to convert your guest visa to a work visa.
Getting a work visa is very difficult. For starters, you need to be in an in-demand field, search the skills lists for those fields. Medical or engineering fields tend to be good for this, but the full lists say which jobs/fields are suited for the work visa (hope those are your fields, or you’re out of luck). Then, you need to find a company willing to hire a foreign immigrant - and most places will try to fill positions with Irish citizens before ever even looking at immigrants. You need something, some sort of special skill, that sets you apart from an Irish worker. Then you need to go through the process of obtaining the actual visa, and you’d need housing. And Ireland is in a really terrible housing crunch right now. (And a pretty bad employment and wage crunch too).
The other route is to get a student visa. For that, you’d need to enroll in an Irish university. That entails everything enrolling as a US university would, plus the visa process on top of that. And since we aren’t Irish citizens, and aren’t EU citizens, we can’t get the same tuition as they would, it’ll be very expensive. On top of schooling costs, you need to have either €15,000-ish per year on hand, or some sort of income ready in Ireland in order to get the student visa. They want you to prove you could support yourself financially. There’s student aid, but that likely won’t be enough.
Lastly, there’s the golden visa. It’s likely the “easiest” route, but also the most difficult to achieve. It needs money, capital. You need to invest at minimum €1,000,000 in a business in Ireland and keep that investment in that business for at least 3 years. Or put €1,000,000 in an approved investment fund and maintain that for 3 years. Or put €2,000,000 into real estate investment trusts for at least 3 years. Or put a charitable donation of at least €500,000 into a qualifying philanthropy project in Ireland. To get a golden visa, you need at minimum €500,000, which is about $530,000. And this doesn’t count any money you’d need to sustain yourself in Ireland.
I get it, things are going to get scary here. I know, I’m a gay guy as well. We are going to be in for a rough 4 years at least. People are going to get hurt. But you can’t panic and rush to emigrate, because it won’t work. Not unless you’re willing to illegally emigrate, which opens a massive bag of worms in its own right. Take a minute, breathe, and batten down the hatches here. I would recommend moving to one of the solid blue states for the short term. Then, do your research, save up, and get a plan to emigrate in the next 10 years or so. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but emigration is not something to rush to in a panic. I want to get out of here as well, but you’ve got to be realistic about it.
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u/FileAccording6438 Nov 14 '24
I wasn't planning on just showing up. Thank you for the info. Hopefully someone else will Have more experience and knowledge ti share . Have a great day .
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u/FirstTimeTexter_ Nov 15 '24
If you could get any European passport you could move here, any chance you've heritage anywhere in the EU?
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u/Ancient-Musician-628 Nov 14 '24
HI 63M HERE from nyc ..i just got my irish passport..if either of your parents were born in ireland you are already a citizen,,all you do is apply for a passport.
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u/Ancient-Musician-628 Nov 14 '24
and its a EU passport
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u/FileAccording6438 Nov 14 '24
So any suggestions on how to find employment? Also can I purchase property? If you know any help is appreciated
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u/wannabewisewoman Nov 14 '24
Ireland is in a massive housing crisis, it is incredibly difficult to find affordable housing to rent or buy. You will need a well paying job because the cost of living is also super high currently, but depending on your field, you may not be able to get a job until you are here and setup with tax, have a bank account etc., which you typically need an address to get.
The public transport is severely struggling as is the healthcare sector. Then there’s also the weather to consider - it’ll be very different to Hawaii, dark cold winters, hit or miss (usually miss) summers etc.
As others have shared, you would be better off reviewing the threads dedicated to moving to Ireland as there’s a LOT to research and prepare for in advance. Have you ever visited Ireland? If not, you should plan a trip, get a list of things to check out and dig into any open questions you have. Do you have family or friends here?
Totally understand your panic & really feel for you, the USA is a dumpster fire and only going to get worse. However, I want to emphasise that this is a massive change that you really need to meticulously plan if you don’t want to end up in a bad situation. Ireland is not an easy place to move to (or live in) currently and wouldn’t be my first choice if I were you.
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u/ward-92 Nov 14 '24
You'll need to fit the critical skills visa requirement.
Honestly this isn't a good sub to post in. Its rarely used, no good irish lgbt subreddits
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u/NASA_official_srsly Nov 14 '24
https://www.reddit.com/r/MoveToIreland/s/wglnSeLNCX