In order to claim asylum in many countries, an asylum seeker is required to prove there is a threat to them in their home countries, but in recent years, there has been a trend of those with refugee status heading back to their home countries for a quick holiday or vacation.
Often refugees are not working in the countries they claim asylum in and have been known to spend taxpayer money to finance their holidays in the countries they claim to have fled as well.
Denmark, a country that has become increasingly strict on matters of asylum in the last few years, has announced it will be looking at banning those with refugee status from holidays in their homelands, and could even strip people of asylum status if they take a holiday back home.
Currently, refugees who have lived in Denmark for at least ten years are allowed to return to their countries on holiday but Denmark’s Immigration and Integration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek has stated he wants to ban the practice and amend the rules. Dybvad Beck said,
It cannot be right for you to live in Denmark with access to the entire welfare society with an asylum residence permit, because you are persecuted in your home country, but then at the same time spend your summer vacation travelling back to your home country and taking a vacation.
“For me, the 10-year rule does not make sense, and therefore we want to change the law,” he went on to add.
The phenomenon of refugees travelling back to their homelands for holidays is nothing new in Europe and has been reported many times since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015 and 2016.
In 2017, for example, the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) claimed to have become aware that many with refugee status were taking such holidays and had been informed of them by the Federal Police, who indicated that the trend may be pervasive.
BAMF also noted at the time that there were no laws in Germany to prevent people with refugee status from going back to their country of origin for a holiday, stating that in some cases it may be justified, if the asylum seeker has a sick relative, for instance. The exact number of such trips, however, was not reportedly recorded.
Last year in Sweden, a survey revealed just how prevalent holiday trips to refugees’ home countries were, with 79% of refugees, nearly 8 out of 10, in the country saying they had been back to their home country for a holiday.
The survey also found that very few immigrants in Sweden, refugees or otherwise, had any intention of permanently returning to their home countries.
Similar data has been seen in Norway, with a 2018 study revealing that as many as 71% of Iraqis had travelled back to Iraq and 40% of Afghans had travelled to their country regularly.
Denmark’s proposed policy is just the latest in a string of laws and policies aimed at tightening immigration to the country by the centre-left Social Democrats led by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
In January of 2021, Prime Minister Frederiksen set a government goal of zero new asylum seekers, claiming that too many asylum seekers could affect Danish social cohesion saying, “We must be careful that there are not too many coming to our country, otherwise our cohesion cannot exist. It’s already challenged.”
“One in five young men from non-Western backgrounds who were born in 1997 had breached the penal code before the age of 21. One in five,” she said and added,
It’s nothing new, and that’s the problem: it’s been going on for too many years. Girls are called derogatory things because they are Danish. Or girls are subjected to social control because they have become too Danish. A sausage cart in Brønshøj is attacked with firecrackers because it sells pork.
In April of that year, Frederiksen called on Syrians from the Damascus region to go back to their country saying, “If you’re a refugee, it’s because you have a need for protection. And if that need disappears because you are not individually persecuted or there are no general conditions that require protection, then, of course, you have to return to the country you come from.”
Asylum seekers are also expected to work at least 37 hours a week in order to qualify for state welfare benefits in Denmark in an effort to get individuals with foreign backgrounds into the Danish workforce, particularly migrant women.
