World

Danish Plan To Pay For Refugees: Start Taking Their Valuables

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Jacob Bojesson Foreign Correspondent
Font Size:

The Danish government laid out a plan to start seizing asylum seekers’ jewelry and cash in order to pay for their resettlement last week, but police officers say they will refuse to enforce it.

The plan that is expected to be enforced starting in February is a countermeasure to cover the costs of resettling immigrants in Denmark and deter more refugees from coming to the country. Any item valued at 3,000 Danish kroner — about $440 — or more could be confiscated.

The liberal Left party minority government is backed by several other parties on the proposal, including the Conservatives and the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party (DPP), to gain enough support for the law to pass.

“Basically we’re saying that if you want to come to Europe you should stay clear of Denmark because we have a lot of problems with migrants and we don’t need any more in Denmark,”  DPP spokesman told Martin Henriksen told AFP Monday.

The opposition has drawn comparisons to measures against Jews in Nazi Germany, but the government defends its position, since it technically applies to all Danish citizens.

“There is no reason to criticize, since it is already the case that if you as a Dane have valuables worth more than 10,000 kroner [$1,468], it may be required that they are sold before you can receive unemployment,” Danish Integration Minister Inger Stoejberg wrote on her Facebook page last week.

Claus Oxfeldt, the national chief of police, said police officers feel uncomfortable with the idea of having to take from refugees and make estimations on what’s valuable and not.

“We aren’t hired to assess the value of things,” Oxfeldt told daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten Monday. “You can’t me ask me to tell the difference between a ring that costs 1,000 [$147] or 5,000 kroner [$734], because I can’t.”

Denmark has registered 18,000 asylum seekers in 2015, compared to neighbors Germany’s 1 million and Sweden’s 150,000.

Follow Jacob on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags : denmark
Jacob Bojesson