>>>>And how tolerant is the US about immigration? Asylum seekers?
>>>
>>>More people come to the US than anywhere else....So....
>>
>>Another view at this: two of my daughters have remained in the US. My grandchildren are US citizens. When we make our annual family reunions, they come here. Guess why.
>
>
>You're too old to travel? :-)

Definitely not. I can even endure 12-15 hours without smoking, no problem at all.

It's, as first, the visa. The first thing is you need to schedule a talk, and just to call the embassy you need to pay something outrageous - last time I think it was around $100 or 200 (that was 11 years ago, I really don't quite remember). Then you get treated as a suspect from square one, and you actually have to prove that you are not whatever they think you may be. Then they require some serious paperwork, with very little privacy left (which is the reason I also won't even think of traveling to UK, Ireland and few other countries). And if there's some clerical error or misunderstanding, you may later be held responsible for lying on your application.

Then there's the issue of bringing some cash along. Not just the card, but cash. We have exchange offices as kiosks around here, anyone with 10K can start that as a business - and guess what, you can't buy dollars. The exhangers just don't want to deal with it, because the Fed forces foreign central banks to track the serial numbers of any banknote from $20 up, paired with ID or passport numbers of whoever brought them - allegedly to prevent terrorism, but plainly to hassle everyone. So there are only a few exchangers who keep dollars; you have to call in advance.

And then there's the TSA, which is the cherry on the icing.

In the other direction, pretty much nothing. No visa required, cash can be obtained on any exchange kiosk (avoid the airport, though, they work on a 3% margin; anywhere else the margin is below 1%) with zero paperwork (unless it's dollars...). And the TSA is actually checking nothing when you are leaving the US. The checking on layover airports around the EU is very different, depending on the direction - whether it's to or from the US.

This means that the restaurants, dentists, cab drivers, local shops and a few others here get the money that would have been spent on the US side, at least every other year, had it been more welcoming.