That sounds a lot more sane than our politics, out policies change rapidly whenever the parties switch who’s in charge. The whole presidential executive orders thing is really wild, they can’t pass full laws but the power they do weild is immense. The 00s invasion of Iraq was done on an executive order, and no Trump is using them to take away lgbt rights and deport a ton of immigrants. The president is supposed to be reigned in by congress and the judicial branch but they’re both strongly aligned with same party and do little to check his power.

How bad is the racism against Chinese people specifically? My GF is Chinese.

That all sounds a lot better than it is here, we’ve both experienced verbal harassment and I was attacked a couple years ago. I think I’d also feel more comfortable since yall have actual gun control laws, I grew up rural and have been around guns my whole life, but it is absolutly insane how prevalent they are here.

The work life balances sounds a lot better than what we have. We don’t have any minimum time off laws at all, and the current government wants to get rid of overtime pay and union protections.

We’ve started the process for getting our work related papers in order, her medical license has been accepted and my engineering degree and certs are in process. Our current plan is to use the 90 day tourist visas we have to do more in person job searches and then get a work visa. Our leaving the states hinges on how bad things get here. She shares child custody with her ex so we really don’t want to leave the kids if we don’t have to.

We have thought about a couple other countries but NZ is currently our first choice. Australia does appear to have more opportunity as far as work and housing go, but they also feel closer to the US politically which worries us.

How bad at the rural areas? We want to live in a larger city anyways but we both lobe hiking and camping so would like to be able to at least visit the countryside.

Could you expound on work life balance? What kind of vacation time is considered average? Here we get 2-3 weeks a year.

That sounds similar to things here in the US, especially housing and costs of living, though I expect those to be exacerbated by NZ being an island.

I’ve been trying to get an idea of NZ politics and have noticed the rightward shift, but it seems that overall the political climate is a fair bit more leftward. Also proportional government sounds like a dream compared to the shit show we have over here.

Yes, my gf is a healthcare practitioner and I’m an engineer. Both of our careers are on the immigration green list, which gives us a permanamt resident visa.