What Democrats can learn from Denmark's left-leaning border hawks

Washington Post

04-03-2025

Something is working in the state of Denmark.
As David Leonhardt details in the New York Times, its progressive politicians have bucked the populist-right tide hitting other countries. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen tells him they did it largely by moderating on immigration.
It's an approach that Democrats in our country could learn from — if only they were willing.
Their immoderation cost them in the last election. Election analysis found that voters who listed immigration as their top issue were slightly more likely to vote for Donald Trump than voters who listed abortion were to vote for Kamala Harris. Unfortunately for the Democrats, there were nearly twice as many voters who prioritized immigration.
Frederiksen argues that large-scale immigration undermines progressives in another way, as well: By increasing economic inequality and weakening the country's sense of cultural cohesion, it reduces voters' support for the welfare state, whose benefits they increasingly fear will go to new arrivals at their own expense. That's why Denmark's ruling Social Democrats have lowered immigration and stepped up deportations.
Democrats in the United States are not ready to follow the Danes' example. Their reluctance is partly a reaction to Trump. They find the president's policies and rhetoric on immigration outrageous. They don't want to deport long-established and peaceful illegal immigrants, routinely break up their families, or speak of them as though they were all criminals or worse. Capitulating to any of that would, they think, betray their legacy.
Some progressives continue to think, as well, that immigration is a 'distraction,' an issue invented to draw attention from more important issues such as the concentration of wealth. The solution is to address economic issues directly rather than fall for the tactic.
What these rationalizations have in common is a failure to take seriously the possibility that moderation on immigration is even possible. They assume that voters have no reasons for tightening control of the border other than racism or ignorance and that our alternatives are limited to laxity and brutality.
Voters themselves don't all think that way. Some Americans believe immigration has generally been good for our country, but that we should have less of it at this particular moment. They want restrictions on asylum to keep the border from being overwhelmed but also oppose deporting all undocumented immigrants. These are all, according to Gallup, the positions of the median American.
They're also positions in line with Democrats of the past, and not the distant past, either. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton appointed a commission on immigration that issued balanced recommendations including a reduction in legal immigration, timely removal of undocumented newcomers and access to government benefits for those legally admitted. Clinton endorsed those recommendations.
Returning to that older approach, or something like it, wouldn't make Democrats less effective in attacking Trump's excesses. It would make them more credible. It would help them show that their opposition isn't rooted in extremism or woolly-mindedness. It would also put them in a better position to advocate all of their positions on non-immigration issues.
Voters who favor the whole Trump package on immigration would, of course, stick with him. Other voters, though, might find it appealing were Democrats to do more to acknowledge the existence of trade-offs in immigration policy: for example, that you can take in more high-skilled immigrants once you are sure the country won't face a regular influx of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.
Accepting that these voters have rational concerns seems more promising than telling them that they feel ambivalence only because plutocrats have suckered them. Part of what made the backlash to immigration so potent in Denmark, Leonhardt reports, is that the country's 'political establishment spent decades refusing to listen to its own voters.' That's a problem here, too.
Frederiksen's point about the welfare state might raise a mischievous question for conservatives: Should we reconsider our prevailing view, too, and start favoring high levels of immigration because they make big government less viable?
I think not. For one thing, it might be that a lower-trust society will support fewer government benefits but also ask government to do more to broker inter-group conflicts. For another, a fractured country is worth avoiding for its own sake. We should want limited government so that our shared republic can flourish, not because we have given up on the idea of one.
For now, though, there is little sign of a rethinking on either side of the immigration debate. Progressives are hoping that a public turn against Trump spares them from having to make painful changes, which is what happened during his first term. They should reflect that if the United States had accepted fewer immigrants over the past few decades, Trump might not have had a first term.