Buying a vacation home is very different from wanting to live somewhere full-time. How many Canadians are buying with intent to move to the US long-term vs having a winter vacation home? A lot of Americans also buy in Mexico — it doesn’t inherently make the Mexican political and financial system better than ours!
Same goes for tourists. I’d love to visit Moscow, Beijing, and Cape Town as a tourist. It doesn’t mean that I’ll be applying for a work visa tomorrow.
And immigraiton into the US is stymied by a large, obnoxious bureaucracy. I’m a citizen. I was coming from Canada and the US border guard in Podunk, VT gave me a hard time and practically treated me as a foreigner (actually asked me more questions than many border guards abroad asked me as a visitor). I can only imagine how unpleasant it is to non-citizens.
