JD Vance had a point on migration, Denmark's socialist prime minister warns EU leaders

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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 prosperous European 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.

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.

Still, 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?'

Still, 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.

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?"