I moved to the US for the American dream, then decided to leave it behind. It's too painful to stay.

My great-grandfather and I were both 24 when we arrived in America.

He landed at Ellis Island in 1912 with nothing but a suitcase, his savings, and the belief that America would offer a better life.

I touched down at JFK airport in 2022, ready for the adventure I’d waited most of my life for.

We know little about my great-grandfather’s time in America, but we know he brought his fortunes back to Ireland after 20 years doing industrial work in Philadelphia. His version of the American dream earned him enough money to buy a small business, later giving my grandmother the chance to leave Ireland for the UK. It was her grit — inherited by my mother — that permitted me to even dream about one day moving to the US.

In June 2025, after three years in the US, I decided to cut my American dream short and leave the US. Seeing how it treated its most vulnerable had hurt me too much, and I couldn’t watch it get worse.

I was drawn by the allure of the US education system

I always dreamed of attending grad school in America, the electric soft power of names like “Harvard” and “Columbia” emanating with the promise of the US education system.

I’ve spent my career trying to work out how to make the economy serve every one of its citizens better. But every pathway to get there — from non-profits to the UN — seemed to require an MPA.

In 2021, I came home from work one day and decided I would give it a go.

I was at my desk at work one March afternoon when the email from Columbia arrived. I clicked the link to an acceptance lettervirtual confetti exploding across the screen as Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” blared into my earphones.

At Columbia, I was lucky enough to spend two years learning what it meant to serve the most vulnerable in society. I met people who had suffered at the hands of injustice and for whom America had a whole new meaning: one friend fighting for women’s rights in Afghanistan, another learning about gender equity to bring reform to the US Army.

Things have felt precarious for my peers and me for a while

When I graduated in 2024, everyone I knew had plans to stay. I thought I’d be working at USAID as an economist. But after my verbal offer unexpectedly fell through, I began to panic.

I’d moved the start date for my OPT — the visa international students rely on to work after graduation — forward to start the job, which gave me just 60 days to find and start a job in the US. The real possibility of being forced to leave gripped me.

A year after getting our MPAs, many of my peers are still unemployed, and most are from abroad, making them vulnerable to the struggles of staying. Things have felt precarious for us for a while. I’ve watched friends accept jobs four or more pay grades below what they were doing before grad school or get stuck in temporary jobs just to hold onto their visas. Any position, any pay — just to keep the dream alive.

Our struggle scratches only the surface of what so many have to go through just to get by in America — to make a living, cover medical bills, and feed their loved ones.

For Gen Z, these struggles feel particularly real. Four in 10 18- to 29-year-olds say they’re “barely getting by” financially, and only 39% believe the American dream is still attainable, the lowest of any generation.

From housing to costs of livingeverything has become entangled in economic strain. By the time my generation reached adolescence, what constituted a stable and happy life had been redefined by what we can afford.

Everything changed in the last seven months

The US education system — once a magnet for the “best and the brightest” across the world — is under strain. Schools like Harvard and Columbia face the threat of restrictions on their ability to attract talent from around the world, as international students applying for student visas encounter increased barriers to fulfilling their dreams.

When my great-grandfather arrived in the US, he found work quickly. It was a time when America needed migrants to build.

Migrants are now the intimate subjects of news alerts: social media surveillance, peaking deportation flightsand overnight orders to leave. After a while, the fear of being told to leave becomes exhausting.

I want to believe in the promise of America

In June, I decided to leave. After my USAID job offer fell through, I’d managed to find a role at a non-profit in D.C., and planned to apply for an extension on my OPT.

Instead, I chose to give up my life in the US, leaving behind my closest friends and a job I loved.

“All these dreams we had died,” my friend Claire told me as we hugged goodbye. I was pretty sure she’d be the last to go. My first friend in grad school, she had been resolute about staying in New York after graduation. Now, she’s left too.

I really want to believe in the promise of America, and what it could look like; when the first bag of grain is delivered by USAID to a conflict zone, that is who America — the wealthiest country on earth — should be.

I can’t imagine that version of America not being a part of my future. But everything I held dear in the US was hurting. I left to escape the news alerts, and back home in London, I am free from them.

I feel like I left a part of myself in the US

I’ve found a job, and spend my spare time writing a book on how AI’s influence on gender and emotions is reshaping economic life. I love the eclectic familiarity of London.

But I think of America too often — of my time in the Vermont valleys in the first snow of the season, our hike in the Smokies, and sheltering from tornadoes in Savannah. Being back home, it feels like something is missing. I must have left a part of me there.

I think of my friends: one who can’t leave without fear of detainment on re-entry, another whose asylum application was voided, leaving him stateless. The century of the American dream is over.

Now, not a single friend without a US citizenship remains in America by choice, all leaving quietly, with no fanfare.

Alice Lassman is a policy expert with a focus on the global economy and gender. Her forthcoming book explores how AI’s influence on gender and emotions is reshaping economic life.