Denmark Finally Wising Up: Will Confiscate Property From "Refugees" To Pay For Their Care AND Will Delay Family Immigration

How Not to Welcome Refugees

With its new immigration law, Denmark is once again sending a blunt message to migrants.

Edward Delman Jan 27, 2016


On Tuesday, the Danish parliament overwhelmingly passed a bill seemingly designed to solidify Denmark’s reputation as Western Europe’s least attractive country for refugees—a hard-earned title at a time when many of its neighbors are tightening border controls as people continue to flee conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere. The law empowers Danish authorities to seize any assets exceeding $1,450 from asylum-seekers in order to help pay for the migrants’ subsistence in the country (items of “sentimental value,” such as wedding rings, are exempt). It also extends, from one year to three, the period that those who are resettled must wait to apply for family members to join them in Denmark.

While Denmark has not traditionally been a magnet for immigration, it hasn’t necessarily been an unwelcome place for migrants either. Over the course of the 20th century, the country of nearly 6 million became home to refugees and immigrants from the Soviet bloc, the Balkans, the Middle East, and beyond. Today, immigrants and their descendants account for 10 percent of the total population. Denmark has also been a prominent advocate for refugees and asylum-seekers. It was one of the first countries to become a party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, and the Danish Refugee Council—a humanitarian group partly funded by the Danish government and the Danish public—is actively involved in supporting refugees and internally displaced peoples around the world.

But the past year brought something different. In 2015, 21,000 people sought asylum in Denmark—up from 14,815 asylum applications in 2014 and 7,557 in 2013. (Denmark happens to be sandwiched between the two most popular European destinations for today’s migrants and refugees: Germany and Sweden.) These are numbers that the Danish welfare state—which guarantees free health care and education, among other benefits, to every citizen—is struggling to handle.

Danish officials have responded with a series of steps, many rather dramatic, that appear to be aimed at dissuading migrants from coming to Denmark in the first place. In August, the government cut social benefits to refugees and immigrants by 45 percent, in a move marketed as an “integration benefit.” To ensure the message was clearly received, the Danish government proceeded to advertise the benefit cut, as well as other government policies that asylum-seekers might find unappealing, in newspapers in Lebanon, which has a large refugee population. More recently, the government proposed moving refugees from urban housing to camps outside cities, an initiative that would “shift the focus of government immigration policy to repatriation rather than integration,” according to Reuters. A Danish city council mandated the placement of pork on municipal menus (observant Muslims don’t eat pork), including at schools and daycare centers, while a Danish court fined a Danish man for driving five migrants through Denmark, from Germany to Sweden.

More at:
[link to www.theatlantic.com]