Sailboat sounds interesting but bottom line is gtfo. Buy a plane ticket (even “round trip”) and go “on vacation” in Texas. Don’t go back. It works for millions of brown people.
I agree.
But having a sailboat means you have a place to live while in an undetermined legal status in the USA or elsewhere (Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, etc). And you are not stuck, broke, in the first place you land (Texas in your example.)
Weather patterns from the RSA over to South America and up to the Caribbean and Florida are easy even for a novice sailor. Modern GPS/chart-plotters make navigation as easy as driving from city to city on the interstate.
As long as you are not chronically motion sick (maybe less than 10% of folks) you can do it. Put almost every Rand of your wealth, legally, into a sailboat, and convert as much as possible of the rest into dollars or Euros.
Then just go out for a perfectly legal day sail, and just keep going. If Uruguay doesn’t suit, try Brazil, and on up to Florida or Texas. All the while, you have a place to live, and a means to keep moving until you find just the right place. Then you sell your sailboat, and your nest egg is converted back into cash.
I’m putting this option out there because I have met folks who actually did it, successfully. They didn’t land in the USA as tourists/illegals with just a small amount of cash. They came with all their wealth in the form of a sailboat that they later converted back to cash, after finding just the right place to settle and work.