At least 41 people have died in the Lone Star State’s unairconditioned prisons due to heat-related or unknown conditions this summer, according to the Texas Tribune.
Even so, it’s hard to firmly establish how many have succumbed to heat-related illness, according to observers. That’s because TDCJ’s official stance is that no inmates have died of heat exhaustion since 2012 — the same year the agency began to be bombarded with wrongful death lawsuits from inmates’ families, the Tribune reports.
have you considered the EU? here’s some routes for you:
if you are degree qualified, then look into getting an EU blue card. it’s the EU’s answer to the green card, and it’s probably the best way for anyone who’s got the chops. it gives you a near free pick at where you specifically end up. try this page to get a feel of eligible locations, some of the locations need big boy salary, so might be off-limits
do you have any grandparents (or great-grandparents) that are from europe? some countries offer citizenship through descent. if you can prove the descent, then you can register as a citizen. 100% worth checking this. it’s a long shot, with a huge payout if it’s valid. common ones you can check are italy, ireland, hungary, germany (maybe?)
third option for you - “digital nomad” visas are a thing that’s growing. you pick up a remote job for one EU state, and then you can get a visa to live in… a different EU state!? you pay the taxes to the state that is giving you the remote job, and you live in the state that provides the visa. the idea being, where does it even matter where you work, if it’s a remote job? so long as your dues are paid, you can go wild! some digital nomad visas even let you bring family along. not all EU states offer this, you would have to do individual research.
if you are serious about moving somewhere, genuinely serious, then take actionable steps to do it, today. i am a couple years down the path of taking steps to move myself. i don’t know how old you are, but you don’t want to look back and think “i could have took measurable steps when i was younger to get out of here, and i didn’t”. wherever your chosen destination, make it your mission. keep your eyes on the prize.
and lastly, if it doesn’t work out, oh well? at least you tried! you will have gained life experience some americans would dream to get, and you should be able to move back simply. you can’t shake US citizenship that easily ;)
We’re currently moving to the northwest and then trying to get a Canadian company to sponsor somewhere east of Vancouver for either engineering or automation/programming.
But holy fuck their housing market is just as fucked as the states’ (if not worse?).
Would an EU company actually have a better time sponsoring a foreigner than Canada for an (cough, cough, white) American?
the first thing i will say is that if you intend to leave your home, you need to define your goals. if the goal is to optimize for max money, probably stay NA (go canada). if your goal is better work-life balance, consider moving to the EU.
you are not the person i replied to so i don’t know what your goals are specifically, but that’s okay 🙂. assuming that your goal is to flee the 20-lane capitalist hellscape, then keep reading
so, most EU states have a “labour market test” (LMT), which is a coded way of saying that they must first try to give the position to their state citizens first, then an EU citizen next, and then sometimes other countries that have specific deals with that state.
however, some EU states look the other way when you are applying through blue card, and ignore the LMT, which means your job application won’t be unfairly put to the bottom of the pile. ostensibly… 🙃
i’ve gone ahead and sorted the list of states that ignore LMT for the purposes of blue cards, in order of their minimum blue card salary threshold, quoted in €:
* states with an asterisk are not eurozone members, salary threshold has been converted
from this info, you will then need to find a job from one of these states (check EURES for full list). for “automation engineer” as you said, filtering for blue card LMT-exempt states, apparently there’s 259,120 vacancies, so that’s fortunate. i think there’s quite a lot of duplication there, and spam listings maybe? knock 2 zeroes off that, call it 2500 vacancies. find a vacancy you are interested in, which pays above the blue card salary threshold for that state.
consider that nearly all of these vacancies are in german, french, and dutch. that might be a problem for you, depends on your language learning skills. there’s still 229 english-speaking vacancies though 🙂
of course, you also need to decide if the vacancy’s state is a place you’re happy to live in. some EU states will be too hot/too cold, or will otherwise have objectively lower quality of life than where you currently live. some don’t have as much english language proficiency, but this can be fixed by learning the language.
to answer your question, it looks like your job/skillset is in demand, so i think you’d be okay to move to EU if you wanted. i guess you would have about the same amount of luck getting a sponsor from either EU or canada? although i know zero about canada - you are more qualified to make that judgement than me.
the better question to ask yourself, is would you want to move to the EU?
i hope this info was helpful ❤️
Very helpful thank you for taking the time to write that we really appreciate your input! It’s still another 2 months before my passport renewal clears so we’re gunna mull it over while I look around.