After Trump’s win, India Googles immigration and H1B, Americans on ways to leave the US

In the US, users in Democratic-leaning states like Vermont and Minnesota, looked for ways to move to Canada, and those in Republican-leaning states like Mississippi and Alabama, looked for birth control options in their states, according to the Google Trends listings.

H1B visa and legal immigration

The search for ‘legal immigration’ in India spiked on November 6 – when Trump was announced victor – from virtually no search interest a month before that, even though Trump had spoken about the actions he would take on what he called illegal immigration if he came to power. Google users in Punjab led the search for the query on Google, followed by those in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Kerala.

Users in India who searched for the phrase legal immigration, also searched for terms like ‘Trump legal immigration,’ ‘legal immigration under Trump’ and ‘Stephen Miller’. Trump has appointed longtime aide Miller, who is known to have a hardline stance on immigration, as Deputy Chief of Staff. He played a central role in many policy decisions, particularly on immigration, including the 2018 family separation policy. With him back as a Trump adviser in his second term, it is widely expected that rejections for visas like H1B – which many skilled Indians rely on to work in the US – could go up.

Google search queries for H1B visa also spiked on November 6, with more people searching for the term than anytime in the month before that. These people also searched for phrases like ‘Donald Trump H1B visa,’ and ‘US birth citizenship’. The phrase H1B visa was searched the most by people living in Telangana, followed by Chandigarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.

‘How to move to Canada from US’ and ‘birth control’

Following Trump’s victory, Google searches for ‘how to move to Canada from US’ surged dramatically, pointing to the likelihood of users in the US looking to move to another country.

There was a dramatic spike in the query ‘how to move to Canada from US’ on November 6 in the US, from virtually no queries for the phrase in a month before that. These queries came predominantly residing in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Oregon and Minnesota. In all these states, Trump’s key rival, and the Democratic Party candidate, Kamala Harris secured a majority.

These people also searched for the phrases ‘easiest countries to move to,’ ‘how to move to Ireland from US,’ and ‘how to move to move to New Zealand from US’.

Another concern that many, especially women in the US, have is potential clampdown on abortions, and increased clamp down on birth control measures, which is a likely policy measure that Trump could introduce.

In 2022, the US Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade judgement, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists. Following the judgement, a number of states in the US passed near-total abortion bans.

Queries on Google on ‘birth control’ surged on November 6, even as the phrase was consistently being searched for on the site throughout the month before that. The states where these searches were made the most were Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Kentucky. Donald Trump won in all these states.

These people also searched for phrases like ‘is birth control being banned,’ and ‘over the counter birth control brand,’ among other things.