How One Country's Left Halted the Far Right with Tough Immigration Stance

Newsweek

a day ago

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
As fears of mass immigration have lifted the fortunes of right-wing populists around the Western world, one place that's not happening is Denmark. There, it is Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's Social Democrat party that has implemented one of the strictest immigration systems in Europe in one of its most socially liberal countries.
In so doing, Denmark has become an example for other nations seeking to strengthen immigration laws—not least the United States, where the perceived softness of the Democratic Party in this area was a key factor in the return of President Donald Trump last year. It also contrasts with much of Western Europe.
"What I'm trying to convince most of my European colleagues about is that it has to be a democratic decision who will enter Europe," Frederiksen tells Newsweek in an interview in Copenhagen, a tolerant and cosmopolitan city where a religious group gifts Korans to shoppers barely 100 yards from the seat of power at Christiansborg Palace.
Denmark gave asylum to 864 people in 2024—the lowest in 40 years with the exception of COVID-affected 2020—and the stated goal is zero. It is because of being a Social Democrat that she supports tougher immigration laws rather than in spite of it, Frederiksen says. Her argument is that the poor suffer most from overwhelmed schools, gang violence and insecurity resulting from those migrants who do not work or integrate with Danish society. The clearest testament to the success of Danish policies is the perception of would-be migrants themselves.
'People Would Rather Go to Sweden'
Agob Yacoub is a Syrian of Christian origin who has been in Denmark for nearly 12 years after defecting from the army at the age of 23. He has worked as a social worker and a teacher and has learned Danish. But unlike family members who made it to nearby Sweden and became citizens four years ago, Yacoub's status is still temporary—and precarious. A few years ago, he had a map of Syria tattooed on one arm. He has no plans to get Denmark on the other.
"The rules are somehow, like, designed to always make you fail," Yacoub tells Newsweek at his apartment in a diverse Copenhagen suburb where he lives alongside Sudanese, Iraqis, Palestinians and Albanians among others.
"They are very good at sending a very bad picture of the system in Denmark that you will not get asylum," he says. "People will rather go to Sweden or Germany or elsewhere."
Syrian asylum seeker Agob Yacoub shows the tattoo of an outline of Syria on his arm in Copenhagen, Denmark, May 16, 2025.
Syrian asylum seeker Agob Yacoub shows the tattoo of an outline of Syria on his arm in Copenhagen, Denmark, May 16, 2025.
Matthew Tostevin
Now he is considering whether to return to Syria after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad late last year—and Denmark would give him up to around $30,000 if he were to go back permanently. Eva Singer, head of asylum at the Danish Refugee Council, tells Newsweek there had been a surge of requests from Syrians looking at possible returns. There is a fundamental problem with the message delivered to asylum seekers in Denmark, she says. On the one hand they were told to learn Danish—not the easiest of languages—to work hard and integrate. On the other, they were told their residence permit must be renewed every year or two with no guarantee it will be.
"These two different messages, they clash, and it makes it very difficult for the individual refugee to say, how much should I really put into trying to learn the language and get into the labor market?" she says, acknowledging the broad support the immigration policies have. One victim may have been Denmark's far-right.
'The Best Argument Wins'
Morten Messerschmidt, leader of the right-wing Danish People's Party, accepts that its poor opinion poll showing compared with anti-immigration parties in Germany, France or Britain partly results from the Social Democrats adopting policies they once branded xenophobic.
"That's not a bad thing," the tall, blond, neatly coutured Messerschmidt says. "It's essentially a very good thing in a political or a parliamentarian system that the best argument wins."
For Messerschmidt, the argument has now shifted to the clash of cultures between Islam and traditionally Christian Denmark and to the question of whether people who are already in Denmark either integrate fully with Danish culture or leave.
Morten Messerschmidt, leader of the right-wing Danish People's Party, with his dog at his office in Copenhagen, Denmark, May 15, 2025.
Morten Messerschmidt, leader of the right-wing Danish People's Party, with his dog at his office in Copenhagen, Denmark, May 15, 2025.
Matthew Tostevin
In focus right now is the deportation of immigrants who have committed crimes but who cannot be expelled because of judicial rulings based on European human rights law. It is a challenge for Frederiksen that has echoes of Trump's judicially stymied efforts to deport criminals who entered the United States illegally.
Alongside her Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni, Frederiksen penned a letter calling on the European Court of Human Rights to make it easier to deport foreign criminals—drawing a backlash from the court's parent body, the Council of Europe, which said: "Debate is healthy, but politicizing the Court is not."
Asked whether Denmark could withdraw from the court, Frederiksen says: "That's not what we want to do."
She argues that it is a question of democratic control over immigration and that the situation has changed since legal texts on asylum and refugee rights were adopted.
"It was all about protecting minorities after the Second World War, especially the Jewish population. And I don't think they had the imagination that the result could be that a person from Afghanistan would enter Denmark and then commit very serious crimes," she says.
"Europe is not able to welcome everybody, and maybe most important now, we have to be sure that we can get rid of people again if they don't behave well. It's not a human right to enter Denmark and do a rape and stay. The court has, of course, the right to be a court, but not to be an activist."