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JD Vance had a point on migration,
Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen warns EU leaders
says she considers “mass migration … as a threat to the
daily life in Europe.”

from https://www.politico.eu/article/mette-frederiksen-denmark-jd-vance-migration-asylum-refugees/

JD Vance had a point on migration, Denmark’s prime minister warns EU leaders In a wide-ranging interview, Mette Frederiksen says she considers “mass migration … as a threat to the daily life in Europe.”

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Mette Frederiksen told POLITICO in an interview that the Trump administration’s Vice President JD Vance was right when it comes to
migration and limiting the mass arrival of foreigners. | Mads Claus Rasmussen/AFP via Getty Images
March 20, 2025 4:01 am CET
By Nicholas Vinocur
COPENHAGEN — There’s not much the socialist Danish prime minister agrees
on with the Trump administration.

For one, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to annex Greenland,
an autonomous Danish dependent territory. He’s also shown a particular
desire to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin when it comes to
the country’s invasion of Ukraine, a sentiment Mette Frederiksen has
ardently opposed.

Surprisingly, though, the center-left Frederiksen told POLITICO in an
interview that the Trump administration’s Vice President JD Vance was
right when it comes to migration and limiting the mass arrival of
foreigners.

“I consider this mass migration into Europe as a threat to the daily
life in Europe,” said the leader of the wealthy Scandinavian welfare
state, echoing what Vance said weeks earlier at the Munich Security
Conference. Frederiksen used mass migration interchangeably with
irregular migration during the interview.

“There is nothing more urgent than mass migration,” Vance told a partly shocked audience of Europeans Feb. 14, saying the threat was bigger than Russia. Frederiksen, who was in the audience when Vance gave his speech
that day, said she “unfortunately” disagreed with him on Russia. She described Russia as the No. 1 threat facing Europe.

Still, he had a point on migration, she conceded.

The center-left politician stands out in a sea of conservatives in
Europe as one of the only socialist leaders remaining in power across
the bloc, in large part due to her severe policies on migration. Elected
in 2019, she doubled down on a wholesale turnaround of Denmark’s
immigration policy, which moved from openness to one of the strictest
migration policies in Europe, if not the world.

But while Danish voters have embraced her tough stance on accepting
foreign nationals, human rights organizations and refugee advocates have accused the government of “racism” and “discrimination.”

Conservative leaders across Europe, from Austria and Hungary to Germany
and the Netherlands, have embraced similar viewpoints on migration with relative success while the popularity of Frederiksen’s socialist
counterparts has waned. Outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have pulled the other way when it
comes to immigration, arguing against hardline policies at the EU level.


Scholz was voted out of office though he hardened his stance on asylum
seekers weeks ahead of the Feb. 23 German election.

“The message that our populations in almost all European countries have
tried to send to politicians through the years: Please get in control
[of] our borders and be decisive on migration,” Frederiksen said.

‘Zero asylum’
Frederiksen, like Trump, has found that her voter base embraces her
stance on migration.

To limit migration, Denmark has deployed a potent cocktail of policies
dubbed “zero” refugees including negative advertising in source
countries urging migrants not to make the trip; confiscating valuables
from migrants to offset the cost of their stay; threatening rapid
deportations for settled Syrians during the reign of Bashar Assad; and
the controversial “No Ghetto” laws aimed at reducing the proportion of foreign-born people in Danish neighborhoods. The country also passed a
law in 2021 that could allow refugees to be moved to centers in partner countries outside the EU, such as Rwanda, a proposal that the European Commission later criticized.


“There is nothing more urgent than mass migration,” JD Vance told a
partly shocked audience of Europeans Feb. 14, saying the threat was
bigger than Russia. | Pool photo by Brandon Bell via AFP/Getty Images Frederiksen isn’t responsible for all of these laws — some of which were introduced before she rose to power — but she has kept the direction of travel steady.

Dating back to his first term, Trump built his core support with “build
the wall” chants at campaign rallies, promising to send back the hordes
of migrants he claimed crossed over the border from Mexico daily. In
recent days, Trump ignored a judge’s order while sending a plane of Venezuelan nationals to a third country, El Salvador.

In office and on the campaign trail, Trump said repeatedly that migrants
have taken jobs away from Americans.

“No matter if you look at statistics on crimes or if you look at
problems on the labor market, insecurity in local communities, it is the
most vulnerable who experience the consequences” of uncontrolled
migration, Frederiksen said.

Frederiksen attributes her party’s success with voters to her migration stance, which Vance also alluded to in Munch.

“No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the
floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. But you know what they
did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree,
they voted for it. And more and more, all over Europe, they’re voting
for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control
migration,” Vance said.

Frederiksen has embraced staunchly socialist ideology when it comes to championing blue-collar workers, expanding access to abortion and
protecting housing rights for tenants. Her immigration policies have
kept the far right at bay and the percentage of immigrants in Denmark
lower than other European countries such as Germany or Sweden.

The result has been a precipitous drop in asylum seekers between 2019
and 2024, when Denmark approved a total of 864 asylum claims.


“I totally believe in equal opportunities and a Scandinavian welfare
model with a tax-paid education, social benefits and health care. But
for me that’s only one traditional pillar of being a social democrat,”
she argued.

“Being in control of migration is the second pillar.”

‘Do you feel safe where you live?’
Copenhagen’s hardcore approach has stirred up plenty of controversy.
Rivals have accused Frederiksen of co-opting far-right policies to win
power and of riding roughshod over the dignity of migrants. Some of
Denmark’s policies, like the law mandating the confiscation of valuables
from arriving migrants, have drawn criticism from the United Nations.
The “No Ghetto” law was found, just last month, of being “directly discriminatory on the basis of ethnic origin” by an adviser to the EU’s
top court.

But exceptions remain. When Denmark took in Ukrainian refugees after
Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the country’s parliament voted to amend the law to exempt those nationals from the restrictions
on other migrants.


To limit migration, Denmark has deployed a potent cocktail of policies
dubbed “zero” refugees. | Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images
Critics have noted that similar policies would not work in larger, less homogenous EU countries such as Spain or France, which have much bigger immigrant populations going back generations linked to their colonial histories.

What’s more, Denmark has carve-outs from Europe’s justice and home
affairs treaty, which grants Copenhagen wide latitude to enact policies
that might be illegal elsewhere.


Indeed, while Denmark is something of an outlier in the EU, its
officials have been driving a recent reappraisal of the bloc’s entire approach to migration.

After the EU adopted a new Migration and Asylum Pact in 2024, Denmark
quietly led a group of 20 nations to propose further revisions to the
way Europe handles asylum requests and deportations, according to two EU diplomats.

This effort fed into a new “Directive on returns,” published earlier
this month by the European Commission, that gives states legal guidance
on how they can speed up deportations to third countries or third states
where migrants were previously employed, similar to the law Denmark
passed in 2021 to allow the country to move refugees to Rwanda.

The bloc is also shelling out billions of euros to keep migrants from
reaching its shores. Last year, European Commission President Ursula von
der Leyen inked a €7 billion deal with Egypt to boost development and
deter irregular migration. The EU has also rushed to restore diplomatic
ties with Syria, where it hopes to start returning more migrants after
the fall of Assad despite recent outbreaks of sectarian violence.

“Of course we are all looking at what is going on in Syria. It’s not a political choice whether a country is safe or not. We have authorities
looking into that,” she said.

For Frederiksen, such outlays don’t clash with Europe’s other big focus
— defense. Instead, they’re all part of the same effort to make Europe
more secure for its citizens.

“If I ask people about security and their security concerns, many of
them will reply that Russia and defending Europe is top of mind right
now. But security is also about what is going on in your local
community,” Frederiksen said.

“Do you feel safe where you live? When you go and take your local train,
or when your kids are going home from school, or whatever is going on in
your daily life?”

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