How many return home again?

Voluntarily or by force

There are two ways of returning: truly voluntarily and more or less by coercion.

The truly voluntary way is called repatriation, and this is an offer to people who have a valid residence permit. They can get a substantial economic support to establish themselves in their home country again and personal counseling. However, it requires giving up their residence permit in Denmark for good. The counseling is done by Danish Refugee Council, and the calculation of support and the actual payment is done by the municipality where the refugee lives. The website At vende hjemis for those who consider doing this, and you can read more about it here (in Danish).

The other way is about people who had their application to stay in Denmark rejected. This is rarely really voluntary, but more a question of giving in to the pressure and going back, even if you might be scared and have nothing to come back to. In the police statistics this is referred to as either 'left on their own', 'seen leaving' or 'accompanied leaving'. The last term is a nicer word for forced deportation, which may include a flight with strips around wrists and ankles, diapers and plastic cover over the mouth. At least one person has died during such a transport. If you on the other hand cooperate nicely on going back, you will sometimes and to some countries get an amount of money paid out on arrival, but it will be far less than the repatriation support.

DRC Danish Refugee Council asked a number of rejected asylum seeker about their experiences on returning to Iraq, read about it here.

How many leave?

Without a residence permit
At present, there are approximately 300 people in "return position", meaning a rejected person without a pending appeal, which is a historically low number. However, the low number is not due to more efficient deportation efforts, but merely the fact that more people disapppear from the inhumane deportation camps, often going elsewhere in Europe. In 2022, a total of 222 rejected persons left Denmark, out of these 79 were accompanied/by force and 142 'seen leaving' which means that the police put you on a plane but doesn't accompany. This is not many, considering that 548 were in a position where they are supposed to leave, after a final rejection. Most of the rejected can't be deported for various reasons, even if the Return Agency is trying their best. A large part of the ones who are rejected disappear from the system – trying again in other countries or going under ground. Only very few return to their home countries. Read more about rejection and return in our report 'A firm hand'.

With a residence permit
The number of repatriations has usually been around 300 per year. In total, around 5,800 refugees have returned voluntarily between 2000 and 2020, almost half of them were Bosnians. But the interest has increased lately, especially among Syrians. And after the fall of Assad, DRC has been overwhelmed by requests. However, there are huge problems with receiving the second half of the payment in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, and some regret leaving Denmark and ask to return once again.

Refugees are now only granted 1 or 2 years of permit at a time, and the temporary character is emphasized after the 'paradigm shift'. Information about repatriation has become a mandatory task for the municipalities – which many refugees rightly feel as a bucket of cold water thrown in their face, when they have been granted asylum recently and cannot go back at all.

Repatriation used to only take place after many years, but the insecure future in Denmark after the paradigm shift has made more people give up and return back home. The reason why still so relatively few have gone back generally is a combination of two things: conditions in the home country rarely improve after a short time, and refugees establish themselves in their host country and feel Danish after a number of years. Especially the children grow up without any strong attachment to their parent's home country.