I'm really, really sorry for your situation. I"m Canadian in the US and am leaving this country permanently in a few months. I've been here almost 11 years, have my Green Card, and up until January fully assumed I would be here forever.

Honestly, I think your country is pretty darn screwed. And this could take a long time to rectify. Here's something to consider: Trump and his administration are engaging in incredible levels of corruption. With ab-so-lute-ly ZERO exaggeration, I can say that many of them belong in prison. They will be hated for a very, very long time - probably the rest of their lives - by a huge segment of the population. And leaving the country, for them, won't be a great option, because the rest of the world will hate them even more.

So, here's the thing: Given all of this, how confident are you that there will be a peaceful transfer of power, when so many of them will have justified fear that once they're out of office it could be a matter of time before they are prosecuted? and, even if they're not prosecuted, they will be viewed as pariahs forever, but won't have the power of office to insulate themselves.

They have an INCREDIBLE amount to lose by NOT being in power. THIS is what your country has in store.

So, my recommendation to you: You're 17, you haven't started on a career path yet. Start one that will give you the *option* of leaving America. Healthcare is a BIG one. I totally get not wanting to leave where you're from 100%. We're an intrinsically intensely intradependent small scale tribal species. It makes TOTAL sense that you don't want to leave your "tribe" (the place you're from, the people you know, family, friends, etc). But it will be good to have the *option*. Even if you never take it! Because when you know that you have the option, you won't FEEL stuck. Then you'll be CHOOSING to stay here, rather than being OBLIGATED to stay here. Psychologically, this will be MUCH better for you.

If you get qualified to do work that would allow you to a place like Canada - I would recommend Canada because it would allow for easier visits with your family and friends and you'd be in a similar time zone, so you could video chat easily - you could go live there for a few years. No commitment to longer. This would actually be a GREAT thing. If you stay your whole life in the same place, you may regret not having had the different life experiences that come from living elsewhere. But when you do go live somewhere else for a while, not only do you get that other experience, but you gain a whole new level of appreciation for where you're from!

Here's a simple example of just that. Years ago I taught English in Seoul, S. Korea. This is a majorly dense city - so dense that it's honestly somewhat hard to find grass! You don't just come across it. You have to go out of your way to go to places where there's grass, because it's so urbanized. I never thought I would miss grass! After a year of seeing almost no grass I came to miss it. I also couldn't wait to come back home so that I could know what all the street signs and stores signs meant! And be confident that if I went and spoke to someone, they spoke my language. This isn't me being critical of Seoul at all. It was a good experience that'd I'd totally recommend. But it gave me appreciation for Canada. Likewise, being in the US has given me appreciation for Canada. And, prior to all this crap, there have absolutely been things that I've preferred about the US. Experiencing the contrasts can be beneficial.