It appears that the Danes have have become the Donald Trumps of Europe:
Denmark vows to strip refugees of their valuables to help pay for the cost of resettlement. Weddings rings are off limits.
As if refugees needed yet another reason not to want to resettle in Denmark after the country placed “Don’t come here” ads in Arabic newspapers over the summer, now the country warns it will strip immigrants of their valuables.
The latest anti-refugee sentiment came closer to reality on Sunday when Denmark’s parliament debated a measure that would allow border police to strip incoming refugees of all valuables and cash worth over €300 to help offset costs of resettlement, according to Swedish STV television.
After some discussion, the Danish government apparently decided that refugees could keep their wedding rings, cellphones, and laptops in the measure that will eventually go up for a vote. At least one Danish parliamentarian reportedly insisted that wedding rings with a diamond over a certain carat weight should also be confiscated.
Sören Pind, Denmark’s immigration minister, told Danish television that the plan was the only way the country could afford to house the refugees seeking asylum. “I’m talking about a situation in which there are personal items of significant value but no sentimental worth,” Pind told the television station. “I’m talking about a situation in which a man comes along with a case full of diamonds and asks for protection in Denmark. That’s only fair.”
Fair, perhaps, in that strange world in which theft is OK. The measure, whether it eventually passes or not, raises the question of whether certain European countries really think it is OK to repeat the Nazi approach to immigration, during which the confiscation of valuables was the practice.
I’m with the Danish journalist who said, “Having armed men indiscriminately seize refugees’ personal belongings doesn’t strike me as the best representation of a free society.”
But wait there’s more:
Denmark has promised that any of the 13,000 asylum seekers who are eventually granted a right to stay will be forced to live in segregated tent camps erected in two tent cities and that they will defy European standards and triple the normal waiting period for family reunification as a further deterrent.
So, stealing their stuff, and putting them in internment camps.
This? From the Danes?
What do they think they are? Germans?
You know you have to work hard to make Trump look reasonable.