SYDNEY —  As US election exit polls began to point to a second presidency for Donald Trump, many Americans were already looking for another kind of exit: moving abroad.

Google searches for "move to Canada" surged 1,270 per cent in the 24 hours after US East Coast polls closed on Nov 5, company data shows. Similar searches about moving to New Zealand climbed nearly 2,000 per cent, while those for Australia jumped 820 per cent.

Late on Nov 6 evening on the US East Coast, Google searches about emigrating were hitting all-time highs for all three countries, according to a Google official.

The search giant does not provide absolute figures but data from the Immigration New Zealand website showed that the site logged some 25,000 new US users on Nov 7, compared with 1,500 for the same day in 2023.

Some immigration lawyers are also being inundated with inquiries.

"Every half-hour there is a new e-mail inquiry," said Evan Green, managing partner at Canada's oldest immigration law firm, Green and Spiegel.

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