World Immigration News

Inside Denmark’s Hardline Immigration Experiment

Release Date: 2025-12-02
Media: Noema Magazine
Summary: Denmark is heading into an election in which immigration dominates the political agenda. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats has emphasized public safety concerns and adopted tough rhetoric toward immigrants, sparking backlash from many Danes of Arab descent. Over the last two decades, however, strict immigration control has become a cross-party consensus. Successive governments tightened family reunification rules, reduced benefits, and sharply limited asylum, turning Denmark into one of Europe’s most restrictive countries.

A major turning point came in the early 2000s when a center-right government relied on support from the far-right Danish People’s Party, leading to increasingly harsh laws. During the 2015 refugee crisis, while Sweden and Germany welcomed many Syrians, Denmark closed its border and introduced laws allowing confiscation of refugees’ valuables, drawing international criticism.

From 2015 onward, the Social Democrats shifted rightward to regain working-class voters. After returning to power in 2019, they implemented policies such as offshoring asylum processing, further restricting family reunification, and treating refugees as temporary by default. This strategy successfully recaptured voters but pushed the political center further right.

Far-right forces now promote “remigration,” calling for the review or revocation of citizenship for Muslims and even forced deportation—proposals critics describe as modern ethnic cleansing. Although business leaders, urban liberals, and young people argue for more openness due to labor shortages, national politics remains dominated by suspicion toward non-Western immigrants.

The article concludes that Denmark offers a warning: when center-left parties adopt far-right positions, exclusionary ideas become normalized, political discourse radicalizes, and democratic values erode. Far from a model to emulate, Denmark illustrates the risks of “mainstreamed” xenophobia.
Tags: Denmark

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