Each year, thousands of people from around the world pack their bags and head to the US to experience life in the self-proclaimed "land of the free".
Sydney-born Madeleine Miller is one of them.
"I landed in Philadelphia not knowing a soul," she says.
Miller moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in November 2023 with her former partner.
Despite the relationship ending after six months, she quickly found friends and a job that offered her more money and greater career progression than she had in Australia.
Madeleine Miller has been enjoying work opportunities in the US, but the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency has made her nervous about her future. Credit: Supplied
"That relationship was the catalyst", she says.
With less than a week to go, Miller is feeling nervous and says things in Philadelphia feel more tense than usual.
"It feels a bit more volatile, the energy is a bit more unsure," she says.
For Miller, the choice between Democratic vice president Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump is a stark one.
She is concerned about the potential for a second Trump presidency to deepen cultural tensions in the US, pointing out that the former president has a long track record of using racist and sexist slurs.
"[Trump] is so outwardly and explicitly racist, for lack of a better word," she says, adding "he gives license to people that otherwise might keep their mouths shut."
Miller is Vietnamese Australian and says she has experienced racism firsthand in the US, including a verbal attack shortly after her arrival in Philadelphia.
"I feel like as a woman I have enough harassment to deal with. I don't really want to have racial slurs yelled at me again."
'Incredibly frustrating'
While living in Sydney, Miller was very active in politics and even worked on election days counting ballots. But as a temporary US resident, Miller is ineligible to vote.
It's super weird for me to be in a place where like I literally can't have a say in the outcome of the election.Madeleine Miller
She says many young people in Philadelphia are disillusioned with politics.
"The thing that has surprised me … is the amount of people my age who I have spoken to who have no intention of voting whatsoever, [which] is so incredibly frustrating," Miller says.
Pennsylvania is one of the seven swing states tipped to determine the election — and the state in which both candidates have spent the most money on pre-election campaigning.
Historically, it has been a blue state — held by Democrats — but the 2016 election saw Pennsylvania turn red by a margin of 0.72 per cent favouring Republicans. In 2020, the Democrats re-claimed it by a margin of 1.17 per cent.
Current national polling from shows Harris is narrowly ahead of Trump by 1.3 per cent.
"The general vibe is people are disenchanted by the impact of presidents. I really don't know what will happen," Miller says.
"A part of me is trying not to think about it because I'm so nervous."
Another issue at the forefront of Miller's mind is the potential for to be further eroded. During his first presidency, Trump appointed three Supreme Court judges who helped overturn, the landmark 1973 case that established abortion access as a constitutional right.
Since it was overruled in 2022, half of all US states have tightened restrictions on abortion access, and 13 have introduced near-total bans.
Miller, who had a termination when she was 24, says the outcome of the election could restrict her access to reproductive healthcare.
"It's surreal … very dystopian," she says.
Why am I living in 2024 and I am having to consider the fact that the new leader … is potentially going to restrict my access to my reproductive health?
"Why do I have to question [whether or not] I'm going to have access to a termination of pregnancy, an abortion, simply by who gets elected?"
'They want the immigrant vote'
Like Miller, many foreigners living in the US won’t get the chance to vote in the election based on their temporary visa status.
Miller came to the United States on an E-3 visa — a special subclass of working visa available only to Australians, which has allowed her to live and work in the US for telecommunications company Comcast.
She says opportunities for career progression have guided her decision to stay.
"The scope of the company is unparalleled to anything I've had exposure to in Australia," she says.
"America is a country where if you have money and have access to healthcare through your work, it's a wonderful place to live. I think things are as expensive here as they are in Australia [but] the possibility of making money here is huge."
Up to 10,500 E-3 visas are available each financial year to Australians with a job offer or sponsorship from a US company to work in a "specialty occupation". They are valid for two years and can be renewed indefinitely.
New York-based immigration law expert Zjantelle Cammisa Markel, who is originally from Adelaide, says she has seen an influx of Australians over the last 20 years, largely thanks to the introduction of the E-3 visa in 2005. Applications for the E-3 make up around two-thirds of her caseload.
"Australians used to go to London ... then once they started to get wind of the E-3 they started coming," says Cammisa Markel, who is the founder and CEO of her immigration law firm.
"It's given Australians so [many] more opportunities."
In the lead-up to the election, Zjantelle Cammisa Markel has noticed an increase in the speed at which citizenship applications are being processed. Credit: Supplied
Cammisa Markel came to the US in 2000 and has been practising law since 2005. She said many of her clients are enticed to move to the United States because of business and work opportunities.
"It could be they've reached a certain level of their career in Australia … [and] what they start to see [is] a market here and the market is greater in the US than what it is in Australia," she says.
Many Australians choose to move to America for greater work and business opportunities. Source: SBS News
"Despite the fact that some people might decide they might not even want to come to the US when it's an election year, most times people don't base their decision on that," she says.
I've had clients that have said: ‘If X or Y gets elected, I'm going to move back’ — I haven't actually seen that much of it.
Over the past year, Cammisa Markel has seen an uptick in applications for US citizenship, including from her Australian clients.
"They want to be able to vote and … it gives them a sense of security in the US."
She's also seen an increase in the speed at which citizenship applications are processed. While an application would typically take 12-14 months from start to finish, she says some are taking as little as two months.
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"The current administration is pro-immigrant and is looking for the immigrant vote, so I think they've prioritised citizenship applications."
Under the incumbent President , the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has processed 3.5 million citizenship applications. In 2024 the average processing time was five months — half the processing time of citizenship applications made in 2021.
Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Nolan Hirte, 44, is one of the many Australians who saw a greater market for his business in the US.
Hirte and his wife Shari are the co-owners of Proud Mary Coffee Roasters in Melbourne, which opened in 2009. In 2016, Hirte took a leap of faith and moved his family to Portland, Oregon, to open Proud Mary USA with the intention of staying around five years.
He's now been in the US for eight years and has opened a second cafe in Austin, Texas, where he also lives.
Initially, Hirte contemplated moving to the US to expand his business and to help the coffee producers he works with sell more coffee.
"They were growing more coffee than I could buy — I really wanted to be able to help them," he tells SBS News.
Nolan Hirte moved with his family from Melbourne to Portland to expand Proud Mary after noticing a gap in the US cafe scene. Credit: Supplied
"[I kept thinking]: 'Well if I was in the US that would be super interesting to grow that audience'."
After travelling to Oregon on a family holiday, Hirte saw a gap in the city's hospitality scene he thought he could fill.
"There were all these amazing specialty coffee shops but none of them would do food," he says.
"I could see how well it would work in the US … there was this nagging question: 'how many opportunities in your life are you going to get to offer something in the US?'"
Since setting up shop in the US, Hirte’s proximity to producers has meant he can source coffee more sustainably and reduce his operating costs.
"It’s far easier for me to put out a quality product here and charge accordingly, so that means I'm able to keep chasing that dream that I've got.
"It makes us happy we're thriving."
While Hirte says he doesn’t plan to return to Australia any time soon, he says there are some drawbacks to living in the US.
The hardest pill to swallow in the healthcare system.Nolan Hirte
Unlike Australia, the US does not have a universal healthcare insurance scheme. Instead, people have to pay for health insurance and any out-of-pocket costs they incur when accessing medical services.
According to the Peterson-KFF Health Care Tracker, Americans spend an average of US$12,555 ($19,081) each year on healthcare — roughly double the amount spent by Australians.
"The healthcare system is not geared around giving everyone access," Hirte says.
According to a Pew Research poll from May, healthcare affordability is one of the top three issues for US voters. Throughout the campaign, both Harris and Trump have made promises to improve healthcare access and affordability.
Hirte is a Green Card holder — the US equivalent of a permanent resident — and, like Miller, is not permitted to vote in elections. But he says he’s feeling "okay" ahead of the election.
"I feel like it's out of my control; there's not a lot I can do there," he says.
"I try to stay out of politics and that has served me pretty well."
A sense of freedom
Unlike Hirte, Steve Berry is unfazed by the US healthcare system.
"I've always had good healthcare. I had healthcare paid mostly by my employers," Berry tells SBS News.
"People who complain about the price of healthcare [are] either ignoring the facilities that are there to take care of yourself or they're too tight to pay a couple of hundred bucks," he says.
The 75-year-old grew up in Orange, NSW, and now lives in Houston, Texas.
He first came to the US in 1980 on a working visa, with his young family in tow. The former Royal Australian Air Force officer settled in Dallas, Texas, where he secured a two-year work contract.
Texas is very much like Australia — or it's like Australia used to be.Steve Berry
After his two years were up, Berry chose to extend his visa, and he kept extending it.
"I wasn't missing Australia, [though] I missed our family and that a little bit."
Steven Berry has been living in the US for more than 40 years and says he feels that the US is a much freer country than Australia. Credit: Supplied
"They saw how we were living and went: 'Boy, we wish we could live here. If we were younger and we could do this,’" he says.
Berry and his family eventually settled in Texas, where they have lived for the past 20 years.
He has now retired and says the sense of freedom he feels in the US is what has kept him from returning to Australia.
He explains that once, when he was considering moving back, he spoke with a salesperson about buying a plane and they listed the extensive rules around owning and operating aircraft in Australia: so he decided against it.
I thought, 'damn, why would I want to go back [to Australia]?'Steve Berry
Over Berry's almost 40 years in the US, he ran several businesses alongside his career in hydraulics. One of the businesses included buying and selling aeroplanes, which meant he flew frequently between Houston and California, a distance of roughly 1,400 nautical miles (2,250km).
"You can't do that in Australia: the rules of flying and private aircraft in Australia are hard," he says.
In Texas, laws regulating plane ownership are more relaxed. So too are gun laws. Around 45 per cent of all adults own guns. Berry feels perfectly safe living in Texas and takes comfort in knowing he has the right to own a gun.
"You don't see people walking with guns…the freedom is here to do it," he says.
Berry became an American citizen twenty years ago and has lived through eight US presidents. He intends to vote for Trump in the upcoming election and is feeling confident about his chances of re-election.
"Under Trump things were really good … I know we'll get back on track."
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