Immigration lawyer David Cohen of immigration firm Campbell Cohen answers questions about Americans considering trading in their homeland for Canada.

Have you even seen this much interest in Canadian immigration?
We’ve never seen the activity on our website on this scale, but we have in the two elections, when Obama was elected and Bush before Obama, seen a significant increase in activity from American visitors to the website.

Do you think these inquiries are serious?
The knee jerk-reaction, the emotional impulse is ‘this president doesn’t speak to me, I want to find another place to live, Canada is the logical choice.’ It will trail off. Traffic is already dropping, but still higher than usual. It will continue to drop over the next month or so.

While the impulse was to move, in reality the numbers of American people immigrating to Canada hasn’t really changed even in election years. Although this is a different cycle that’s quite unpredictable so we may actually see a difference this time, but time will tell.

Cohen stressed that immigrating to Canada is not an impulse decision, and that people are getting information at this stage, and he expects most will take a few months to mull it over.

How hard is it for an American to come to work and live in Canada?
It’s not as difficult as it would seem, particularly for Americans under NAFTA (while we still have it). It’s relatively simple for an American to come to Canada and work. If you're one of 66 listed occupations and you get a job offer, you can move from Philadelphia to Toronto and start work tomorrow. Your spouse can come with you on an open work permit and over time you can decide to immigrate to Canada.

Do you need to have a lot of money to be eligible?
The money that’s required is not significant, it’s under $15,000

Is it harder to move to Quebec?
On a work permit it really makes no difference to Quebec.

You can apply to Quebec. You can have enough good human capital and a job offer in Quebec and be able to be eligible for immigration without being able to speak French.

What choices do Americans who find work have, as far as residency status?
 An American can apply for permanent residence after a period of time in Canada or stay here until this passes over and move back to the U.S., which, given my experience with Americans, I think that’s the more likely scenario.

Americans are extremely loyal, very patriotic, and at the end of the day, the idea of leaving the U.S. for another country, I think for them is something very difficult to do.

Can Americans seek asylum in Canada?
You know what, the first caller I thought it was somewhat tongue in cheek, because we’ve never had that request from anybody in the U.S., but by the third caller I began to think people are actually feeling this. I explained that for asylum, you have to have a legitimate fear of persecution, based on ethnicity and religious belief. While in a nightmare situation that may come to be, but that certainly isn’t the case now.