Sounds like a huge pain. I'm glad I was born there, I'm living in the UK and have been since I was 6 as my mother was born here.

So luckily for me I'm legal to live anywhere in the UK/EU and US at any time.

Black magic could help you, if you are or know a skilled black mage.

Is the process really that easy?

You live in America for 5 years, take a test, have an interview and pay $700, and that grants you US citizenship?

afaik it also depends on where you'ra coming from. For citizens of the EU, Canada or Japan, it should be quite easy to get US citizenship. From what I heard it's a lot harder if you're coming from africa, middle-east, russia or china.

I don't have any evidence though, it's just what people told me. I mean, it would make sense, but that doesn't mean it's true, does it? =P

Yes, but it has to be 5 years living in US as a legal permanent resient.  It's not that easy to get permanent residency (green card) in the first place.

Obtaining a green card, which lets you live and work in US indefinitely, is hard, more expensive, and can take decades unless it's through marriage.  Getting a citizenship at that point is more of a formality.

I'm not sure in the case of your friend. What I do know is if you want to hire someone from another country, it's a giant pain in the ass and nearly impossible unless you're a corporation with endless resources. We've tried to hire people from other countries on multiple occasions but the work visa situation always kills it. It takes months, costs a bunch of money, and it is LITERALLY randomized (a lottery) unless you can prove to some jackass that the person you're hiring is uniquely and extraordinarily talented and you can't find someone like them in the US. We're a 2D animation studio so that process is trying to prove something relatively subjective to someone who has no idea what they're looking at. Sigh...

Getting citizenship is easy. Getting to live here is ridiculously hard, expensive... and down to luck (luck that either you have a direct relative living here, or you make it through one of the lotteries).

Since you'll be travelling by vehicle, you have only one choice then: the frozen north. Any country south of the US is a mess. The frozen north country is not necessarily 'better' but is very similar and easy to adjust to. Unless you enjoy the money you make working at your job, as the frozen north country will take at minimum 1/3 of it in various and numerous taxes. Look up the price of a new car there.  They do have a leader named Justin though, so that makes up for much of the money you pay to be frozen for 1/2 the year...

An American student here said 8 years.

Oh yeah, that's what I thought. That it's hard to get in in the first place.

But all these immigrants to the US, on average around 2 million per year since 1990. What are their reasons to get a green card? It doesn't sound ridiculously hard when you know that 2 million people manage to do it each year, does it?

And an interesting question that follows. How many people would come to the USA if there was no process, if there were no restrictions at all?