Back in the early 80's I remember a liberal young couple that "defected" to the USSR. The USA told them to have at it. It was in all the papers around here. 3 months later they wanted to return to the USA.

I think the US let them back in because they were American citizens. If I would have been Reagan I would have told those two not only no, but hell no. And then I would have sent the rest of the dems over there to live with them.
One thing that has always stuck in my mind. This was the early nineties. A group of russians came over here, can't remember why, some tour. I was at the 1 hour photo processing place and the group came in to pick up their pics. Did they have photos of the mountains, etc? No. They had photos of the aisles of the local Krogers. Tons of them. The interpreter told me that they had spent three hours at the Krogers for the simple reason the russians simply could not believe all the food on the shelves and that just anyone could come in and buy whatever they wanted. And they wanted to show everyone back home to prove it to them.
I decided right then and there that I was never going to vote for a commie loving dem ever again.