In April, to much criticism at home and abroad, the British government announced a new plan it hoped would address the increasing numbers of migrants crossing the channel to claim asylum.
The 5-year program seeks to send migrants, who have come illegally to Britain, to Rwanda, where the British government will pay for them to be housed and fed, while the authorities in Rwanda will assess their claim for asylum. Whilst in Rwanda, the applicants will be given asylum seeker status for that country, and they may look for work and move about freely. Rwanda is being paid £120m for providing those services.
While the media and many taxpayer-funded NGOs hated the plan, the public seemed narrowly supportive. As ComRes director, Chris Hopkins pointed out, while the public seemed to think the plan might be flawed, in seems they preferred that to no plan at all. The proposal has, however, stalled because of legal challenges.
Now the Danish government, who have likely done polling of their own, look set to adopt a similar plan as immigration continues to be a hot political issue in the country.
The Danish Ministry for Immigration and Integration has now announced that it has signed a joint statement on bilateral cooperation based on “exploring the establishment of a program through which spontaneous asylum seekers arriving in Denmark may be transferred to Rwanda for consideration of their asylum applications.”
The statement said it would also include “the option of settling in Rwanda” for those who have come illegally to Denmark.
An earlier partnership agreement had been announced between the two countries in 2021, but the latest statement confirms that Rwanda is prepared to those claiming asylum from Denmark.
Danish Immigration minister Kaare Dybvad Bek is visiting Rwanda with Flemming Møller Mortensen, the minister for foreign development, where they met media to present the new proposal.
The Rwanda plan is the latest in a series of measures from Denmark’s centre-left government which has taken a tough stance on immigration in response to public concerns.
As reported on Gript by Matt Treacy in May:
On Wednesday this week, Denmark announced a deal with Kosovo for that country to take 300 non-Danish prisoners in order to reduce the demands on the Danish prison system whose population has increased by 20% since 2015. Much of that increase has been driven by increased crime and convictions by and of first and second generation immigrants.
Already by 2015, around 40% of the prison population of over 4,000 was not ethnically Danish. At that time, non-ethnic Danes were four times as likely to be convicted as Danes. Of course, many on the left ascribe this to racism rather than recognise the reality that serious crime in Denmark is more prevalent among some, but not all, immigrant communities.
Other measures include an agreement that any immigrant convicted of a serious crime should be prevented from becoming a citizen.
“Among immigrants, some are doing well, and then some are doing poorly,” Danish Immigration and Integration Minister Mattias Tesfaye said at the time.
“We want to make sure that those who receive Danish citizenship have settled well in Danish society and have embraced Denmark — including Danish values.”
It remains to be seen whether the EU Commission will approve the Rwanda measure, and some have flagged that it may be in breach of the Dublin Regulation which aims to determine rapidly the EU member state responsible for processing the claim of asylum made by someone who has entered the country illegally.