Denmark has passed a law allowing it to relocate asylum seekers to third countries while their asylum claims are processed, in a move that has drawn sharp condemnation from human rights groups.
It appears that this move on Denmark’s behalf will provide an opportunity for other EU nations to explore the same possibility. Denmark’s bill would allow for refugees seeking asylum in Denmark to be relocated to a facility in a country outside of the EU. The lines are a bit blurry here as there is no process or precedent in place to facilitate this kind of arrangement. It seems that Denmark’s leaders made a blind decision to begin to chip away at their moral obligations to protect refugees. Denmark would also have to reach an agreement with a third country that would allow for the construction of such facilities. How would they even go about doing this and would a country even want this to happen? Denmark made questionable decisions back in 2019 when they forced Syrian refugees from the Damascus region back to war-torn Syria. Denmark was the first to sign agreements on human rights and refugee conventions all the way back in 1951, but are now facing a contemporary identity crisis. The government making these decisions is the left-wing Social Democrats coalition, but these policies are clearly following a more right-wing point of view on immigration. It is dangerous to see refugee protections be stripped away especially if it entices other EU nations to do the same out of fear of the sheer number of refugees. There has got to be a better solution rather than “off-shoring” people seeking asylum in countries such as Denmark.