24-year old Chinese graduate student is moved between jail, psychiatric ward, and an isolation cell in a notorious detention facility after self-reporting a visa overstay during her studies due to Covid. Grotesque story of willfully cruel treatment. thelocal.dk/20210216/denma…
But perhaps not so grotesque as expectable, given the current Danish regime on immigration. An overcorrection of epic proportions, where simply making things ever "tougher" has become a competition in itself. And counterproductive or cruel rules are never revisited.
We've gotten a front-row seat to the system after staying in Denmark for just three months required a bureaucratic maze to allow my wife to stay in the country with her Danish husband and three Danish kids. Met with nonsensical rules and demeaning officials every step of the way.
I can't even imagine the indignities that families without the resources, the fair skin, the blue eyes, and the professional advocates would face. So much of this regime seems to be designed to inflict the maximum amount of harm, as a deterrent to want Denmark. It's working!
Denmark gets so many parts of public policy right. Or at least better than most. But the immigration system is a cruel exemption. And it brings out the absolute worst from the bureaucratic state. A sad stain on Danish society.
I contrast this with the Spanish system. I'm sure there are also unbecoming cases there, but our experience was night/day difference. Warm, welcoming people who didn't look at fellow Europeans with distrust or had explicitly designed the process for pain.
Really is incredible that it was easier for us, a Dane and an American, to settle in Spain for many years than it is for the two of us, and our Danish/American children to do the same in Denmark.
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