Not a single asylum seeker on Danish soil is the dream of the government of Social Democrat Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, which intends to outsource the procedure, particularly in Africa. Denmark is also the first country in Europe to authorize the return of Syrians to Damascus, the Syrian capital, now considered by the Danish authorities as safe. While Emmanuel Macron affirmed, on Wednesday February 2, his wish to strengthen EU border controls, Denmark is locking itself more and more.
Residence permits are revoked and families are torn apart, complains Michala, a member of the association Refugees Welcome: “The typical case is that we will have the young men and the adult men who are going to be able to stay because they risk being drafted into the army if they are sent back, while the young girls and women single people will lose their protection because they have no political reason to seek asylum. They have just fled the war.”
“Families are separated. Parents, for example, are sent to detention centers while their children are allowed to stay and continue their education and life in Denmark.”
Michala (Refugees Welcome)at franceinfo
This is the case of the family of Nadia Doumani, a young Syrian who arrived three years ago: “They canceled my mother’s, my little brother’s, my father’s residence permit and mine. Of course, we appealed, because we would risk being killed if they sent us back to Syria. We fled the Assad regime and came here to Denmark to find peace.”
Decisions as cruel as they are absurd, since without an agreement with Damascus, the Danish government cannot deport these asylum seekers. But what he wants is first of all to discourage any new immigration and on the domestic scene, to win votes from the right by adopting his hard line.
It works for now, warns Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, a professor at Copenhagen Law School: “A majority of Danes support a very restrictive asylum and migration policy and a majority of political parties in the Danish parliament also want this tightening of the immigration policy. But we can see changes. Recently, for example, voices are particularly high in the right-wing parties so that the rules are relaxed, because the labor market requires more foreign labour.” Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen formulates a Caution: By portraying itself in a hostile light to foreigners, Denmark risks also discouraging these needed and wanted workers. This is perhaps where the Danish model of closure finds its limits.