Many Danes fear that refugees are a drain on the welfare system. Source: IIvy Njiokiktjien/ The New York Times/Redux/Eyevine.

Prior to embarking on my fall 2022 semester abroad in Denmark, I took a class called Introduction to European Studies. Like some of the other students, I had limited knowledge about European history. The topic of “migration” in Europe was already of great interest to me because it had directly affected my family. My grandfather was a part of the Windrush period, and learning more about it in class greatly affected how I viewed immigration in Europe. It led me to wonder if other European countries had the same or similar immigration policies.

Before I went to Denmark, my online research showed that there is a tendency in Danish media to associate immigrants with crime and welfare dependency. After arriving in the country, however, I was able to develop a more complex understanding of the topic.

Before talking with locals, I wasn’t aware that differences in religion and culture were such important factors in how immigration is perceived. Denmark is often regarded as an egalitarian and homogeneous society with a strong sense of national identity. In theory, Danes believe that everyone should be treated equally regardless of their differences. However, attitudes toward migrants do not always align with this value.

Windrush: a history of mistreatment

We see similar patterns when we look at the United Kingdom. The Windrush period was a time in which large numbers of West Indians immigrated to the UK to help rebuild the country after World War II. Despite being invited to the country, they experienced discrimination and other unfair treatment there.

In 2018, a British scandal emerged regarding members of the Windrush generation being denied legal rights such as health care. Some were threatened with deportation and loss of employment. This was after they had already settled, built families, and accepted the country as their own. The government claimed immigrants in the Windrush generation had no record of legal official documents and therefore were not considered citizens. But the West Indies countries from which they had emigrated were British colonies, so they were in fact already citizens. Thousands have been affected by this treatment.

This led me to think about those more recently affected by European immigration policies and how close some of them are to the story of the Windrush generation.

Connected Histories

Contemporary attitudes towards immigrants and refugees in Denmark have a complicated history. According to Michael Morgensen, author of The Rescue of the Danish Jews, Denmark came under Nazi occupation in 1940. Danes maintained relative control of their own affairs - especially with regard to its Jewish population, who were a well established part of Danish society - until 1943 when the country rejected a German ultimatum declaring martial law, thus ending their three-year long cooperation policy. Prompted by the imminent persecution of its Jewish population, Danes organized a rescue mission that transported 7,000 refugees to neutral Sweden in the course of a few weeks.

Prior to the 1943 rescue mission, however, Danish immigration policy was growing more restrictive toward Jewish refugees. According to Lone Rünitz, author of The Politics of Asylum in Denmark in the Wake of the Kristallnacht, in October 1938 the Danish government instructed its border guards to only admit political refugees. This meant that Jews fleeing persecution on religious grounds, who comprised the majority of refugees from Nazi Germany, did not qualify for asylum in Denmark. This was reflective of immigration policy in much of Europe on the night of Kristallnacht in November 1938. Still, some 8,000 refugees came to Denmark from Germany between 1933 and 1945 on the grounds of political, religious, and racial persecution, especially during the first wave from 1933 to 1935.

Foreign workers striking due to jobs no longer being required in front of the Danish Employers Association. Source: Arbejdermuseets Arkiv (The Workers Museum's Archive).

Since the 1980s, refugees, mostly from the Middle East, have been entering Denmark seeking safety and a better quality of life. However, some Danes today believe that migrants have not integrated successfully into their society, instead developing their own “parallel societies.” The Guardian reported in March 2021 that Denmark was developing plans to reduce the number of non-western residents in order to combat the formation of such parallel societies. A bill also proposed that the interior ministry limit the number of non-westerners in each neighborhood to a maximum of 30%.

I spoke with Mr. Gorm Gunnarsen, a member of parliament for the Enhedslisten (Red/Green Alliance) party, which is the largest political party in Copenhagen. We spoke about the Danes living in rural Denmark being less open to accepting immigrants compared to those living in urban areas. His party and a few others are open to immigration and see the benefits of doing so, but they have limited influence in the national government.

The uptick in hostility toward new waves of immigrants begs the question, what differences do these communities have from Danes? The most obvious answers are differences in religion and culture.

The 2015 European migration crisis was perceived by some Danes as a threat to their national identity. This was when 34,000 Syrian refugees sought asylum in Denmark because of the civil war they were experiencing at home. Denmark has a total population of roughly 5.8 million. Following that wave of Syrian refugees, questions arose around what it meant to be a Dane and whether an immigrant's family could be integrated into the country’s national identity.

These hostile sentiments have been echoed in recent policy changes. Syrian refugees have been asked to migrate back to Syria because the country is now deemed safe for return. These are people who have built their lives here. They are business owners, they have careers, and they see Denmark as their home.

In our conversation, Gunnarsen brought up the topic of Denmark accepting Ukrainians who are fleeing war even though they are not a part of the European Union. They were able to come to the country and were able to immediately start working. He compared that to the treatment of Syrians who were sent to camps, unable to work or get an education while their cases were being heard. They could wait for years and still be rejected. Gunnarsen also mentioned that the same immigration restrictions did not apply to Ukrainians because they were perceived as better able to integrate into Danish society.

For more on the current realities of immigration in Europe, listen to this episode of our Interweaving podcast. Host John Collins speaks with Claudia Hoffmann (University of Miami) about how a critical understanding of race and xenophobia can help us understand public discourse surrounding Ukrainian refugees. Drawing on her experience in Germany, Hoffmann insists that European hypocrisy regarding migrants from different parts of the world can be overcome if we focus on the humanity of the migrants themselves rather than the polemical debates surrounding them.

Today, according to my host mother, it is practically impossible to immigrate to Denmark. The anecdotal talk around town is that the national government doesn't want pressure on its social welfare programs from immigrants who come into Denmark without education and employment, but those fears are grounded in harmful stereotypes.

Danish officials have argued that women and men from non-western backgrounds work less and are overrepresented in criminal statistics. I heard similar arguments from my Danish language professor. But another common argument against new immigrants is that the Muslim values of the incoming groups clash with Danish values, specifically in terms of equality between men and women.

The contemporary debate around migration in Denmark made me consider the connected history of Jewish immigrants in the country and how Danes treat and perceive the mostly Muslim immigrant communities there today.

Personal Take

A housing project in Copenhagen that is classified as a ghetto by the Danish government. Source: Mauricio Lima for The New York Times.

I recently learned that when asylum seekers are placed in certain municipalities, they must live there for a certain amount of time before they are allowed to move somewhere else. I spoke with some Danes to get their views on the rigidity of their country’s immigration policies and the type of immigrants who are normally turned away. Some expressed that it has nothing to do with their religion or skin color, while others were sure that it was because of their religion, specifically referring to Muslims.

I personally believe that immigrants bring “change,” and the fear of change in such a homogenous country, specifically of a change that is non-western in origin, is substantial. In addition, Danes are known for their impressive welfare state, which presumably exists to help those who need it, yet many Danes see asylum seekers who depend on the system as a threat.

On the other hand, I went on a field study with my class to a culinary school, and one of the instructors shared that immigration in Denmark is a major political debate between government members and industries, especially the food industry, that need workers. This debate signifies an active conversation that is happening across the country. It also raises the question, is Denmark really benefiting from strict immigration policies?