Jessica Mendoza

They reached out to the governments of more than 40 countries, from Albania to Vietnam.

And ultimately, they found that the answer was yes.

And even more Americans want to leave.

In 2008, Gallup found that 1 in 10 Americans wanted to move out of the U.S.

Last year, it was 1 in 5.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Jessica Mendoza.

It's Tuesday, June 2nd.

Coming up on the show, the American exodus.

When Joe and Drew started looking into this question of Americans moving abroad, they found that there weren't any statistics that they could easily go and get.

They basically had to piece it together for themselves based on incomplete data from the U.S.

government and elsewhere.

One piece of data they did have is the number of deportations that have taken place under the Trump administration.

Last year, the U.S.

removed 675,000 non-citizens.

And many more foreign-born residents chose to leave.

Drew and Joe found through their reporting that at least 180,000 Americans moved out of the U.S.

last year.

And they say that's likely a huge undercount.

And so why are so many Americans leaving?