Labelled a ‘criminal foreigner’ – where is the line?

Be honest: have you ever shown someone else's health insurance card to get into a nightclub? Have you embellished some information on an application form? Have you been involved in a fight or theft when you were younger? Have you been fined for speeding?

For all of us ethnic Danes who were born with Danish citizenship, it has no significance for the rest of our lives. We receive a warning, a fine or a suspended sentence, which disappears from our criminal record after 2-5 years, and then the slate is wiped clean. Even if we commit something more serious and have to serve time, we get a fresh start a few years after serving our sentence. But the law is not equal for all.

For those who were born with a different nationality but live in Denmark, such stupid mistakes have far more serious consequences and can be devastating for the rest of their lives. There is no forgiveness or second chances, and no consideration is given to the circumstances. Even those who have been granted Danish citizenship risk having it revoked in connection with a gang- or terrorism-related conviction – a possibility that several political parties want to expand in the future.
 
Politicians regularly refer to ‘criminal foreigners’ and believe that the consequences should be tightened and more people should be expelled. Most voters will probably think of tough gang leaders and murderers – but at the end of this article, you can read about four completely ordinary, kind and conscientious people with refugee status who have been labelled ‘criminal foreigners’ and therefore have limited rights.

Permanent residence is no longer granted automatically, but only if a number of requirements are met, one of which relates to criminality. A short, suspended sentence results in a quarantine of between 6 and 7½ years from the date of sentencing, while an unsuspended, longer sentence can result in a quarantine of up to 30 years, which applies from the date of release.

Danish citizenship requires that you first obtain permanent residence, and then a number of additional requirements must be met. In this case, even a fine for a traffic offense of DKK 3,000 triggers a quarantine of 4½ years. Any conviction, whether conditional or unconditional, means permanent exclusion. An exemption can be sought from the Citizenship Committee, but this is rarely granted. Even if the conviction is deleted from the criminal record after a number of years, you are still obliged to disclose it – and if you fail to do so, you risk a new penalty for providing false information under oath.

Under Danish law, expulsion orders MUST be issued in connection with all unconditional and certain conditional prison sentences imposed on foreign nationals, unless this would ‘definitely’ violate international conventions. Normally, only strong ties to Denmark and close family members residing here can prevent expulsion. Expulsion orders can also be issued administratively by the Danish Immigration Service (without going before a judge), e.g. if you enter the country illegally, do not have the means to support yourself, or violate your residence and reporting obligations as an asylum seeker.

The only thing preventing expulsion and possible revocation of Danish citizenship is the international conventions to which Denmark is bound. This applies in particular to Article 8 on the right to family life in the European Convention on Human Rights and several provisions in the Council of Europe's 1997 Convention on Nationality and the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Finally, the EU has legislation on the right to Union citizenship. Denmark is already being criticised for not doing enough to tackle statelessness and actually has problems with the definition itself.

4 cases

The following 4 examples are people who have contacted Refugees Welcome and made use of the free legal advice service that we have been running for many years. We have changed the names to anonymise them, but we have documentation in all cases.

• SAID AND HIS WIFE MARIAM arrived together at Kastrup Airport in 2013 on their way to England after their honeymoon in Thailand. They are Christians and had also been baptised in Thailand. In Iran, they had already experienced threats and persecution and had therefore decided to seek asylum in Europe.
 
They entered the country with false Israeli passports and were therefore both convicted of document forgery and sentenced to 40 days in prison after their arrival – a harsh start to life as refugees in Denmark and an extremely questionable procedure, since the Refugee Convention expressly states that a refugee who uses false documents in connection with their entry must not be punished. They were later granted asylum under §7.1 (convention status) and never thought that the sentence in connection with their entry could have any significance in the future.

They quickly learned Danish, found work, and gradually met all the requirements for permanent residence. Said also obtained this without any problems. However, when he applied for citizenship, he was asked to explain why he had not disclosed anything about his conviction. He replied that he did not think it mattered, as he did not even have a CPR number at the time. His application for citizenship was rejected, and he may later face police charges for providing false information. Mariam is awaiting the outcome of her application for permanent residence.
 
Recently, the Supreme Court ruled in a similar case and found that the conviction and imprisonment were a violation of Article 31(1) of the Refugee Convention. This states that refugees recognised under the Convention may not be prosecuted for entering a country without documents, with false documents or with someone else's documents. Said and Mariam must therefore have their case reopened and overturned, and possibly receive compensation, both for the wrongful imprisonment, sentence and for the approximately DKK 18,000 that each of them had to pay in legal costs. We have examples of refugees who have been held in custody for a year in connection with a sentence of 10-40 days' imprisonment in these cases.

• NABIL is now 33 years old and came to Denmark in 2001 as part of a family reunification with his mother and siblings. He is a trained social worker and has a permanent full-time job in social psychiatry. He is also training to become a psychotherapist. In addition, he has been a union representative in the Danish Association of Social Workers and a volunteer board member in a political party.
 
When he came to Denmark, he was told that he would automatically receive a permanent residence permit when he turned 18, but instead he lost his temporary residence permit and had to apply for a new one himself.
 
When he was 23, he applied for permanent residence. At that time, he was attending secondary school and had three part-time jobs. When he filled out the application, he stated more working hours than he had actually worked because his shifts varied, and he based his estimate on the months when he had worked the most. However, he noted in the comments that the figures could be incorrect and gave his consent for the Immigration Service to obtain information from SKAT (the Danish Tax Agency) and correct the information. His application was rejected when the Immigration Service arrived at a lower number of hours than he had stated.

Five years later, he was shocked to learn that the Immigration Service had reported him to the police for fraud. The case came to court in June 2021, where he received a suspended sentence of 20 days. His appointed lawyer informed him that he could reapply for permanent residence in November 2024 at the earliest. So he did. This time, his application was rejected on the grounds that the quarantine period would not expire until June 2027.
 
Nabil arrived when he was 9 years old and still hasn't gotten permanent residence after 24 years in the country. He has to apply to extend his temporary stay in Denmark every two years. He can get permanent residence after 2027 if he still meets all the requirements at that time, but he'll be excluded from Danish citizenship forever.

• SARA is Kurdish and came to Denmark in 2012 and applied for asylum, but was rejected. Her ex-husband and the couple's two children are Danish citizens, but she was still denied family reunification with them on several occasions. However, she finally succeeded in 2022.
 
The rejections meant that for almost five years she was forced to live in the Kærshovedgård departure centre, where residents are only allowed to be away for a maximum of 24 hours at a time and must be back before 10 p.m. Fortunately, the family found accommodation only an hour's drive away, and her ex-husband picked her up and brought her back almost every day so that she could be with her children, who were small at the time. Her daughter was hospitalised three times during her first years of life.
 
Sara chose several times to stay overnight with her children when they were ill, even though this meant violating the residence and reporting requirements at the departure centre. The first time, the penalty was a fine of DKK 1,000; the second time, it was 10 days' imprisonment and deportation.  

Sara herself was mentally vulnerable, had attempted suicide and had been admitted to a psychiatric ward. When she received her third sentence for violating her residence requirement, this time three months in prison, she had to serve it in a psychiatric ward.
 
Today, she has temporary residence, but will find it difficult to ever obtain permanent residence or citizenship because of the convictions from her time in the departure centre. One could argue that if she had been granted permission for family reunification the first time she applied, she would never have received her convictions. And the convictions are based solely on the fact that she has prioritised spending time with her young children over the residence and reporting requirements, which have repeatedly been criticised for being at odds with human rights. The residence and reporting requirements are intended for foreigners with a deportation order for serious crimes, but have ended up producing more ‘criminals’ when people are convicted of violating the requirements.

The women's wing at departure centre Kærshovedgård, 2021.

• TESFAY arrived as a young man from Eritrea in 2015, and during the dangerous journey he was separated from his girlfriend. She came to Sweden, but he was stopped in Denmark on his way to her and had to seek asylum here because they were not yet married.
 
He attended language school and received the lowest integration allowance, approximately 5,200 Danish kroner, which was supposed to cover rent, food, transport, telephone, etc. It was almost impossible to make ends meet, as he also had to visit his girlfriend in Sweden and their first child, who had just been born. He therefore did something that he has bitterly regretted ever since: he forged his train ticket to the language school so that he could save money.
 
But it was discovered, and he was sentenced to 40 days in prison and a suspended deportation for forgery in 2016. A sentence that may have an impact on his entire life.

Tesfay completed language school in just 13 months and became fluent in Danish. After a short internship at a pig farm, he got a permanent job at the job centre in his municipality in the same year as the sentence, initially as an interpreter and mentor. From 2022, he was employed as a receptionist, where he is now responsible for receiving new refugees arriving in the municipality.
 
Alongside his full-time job, he studied part-time to become a social worker at VIA University College, and completed his education in June 2025.
 
Tesfay's wife and first child were finally reunited with him in Denmark in 2020 after a difficult process, with the help of Refugees Welcome. She trained as a social and health care assistant and now works in a nursing home. The couple now have two children.
 
He has applied for Danish citizenship but is prepared to be rejected because of his conviction. Therefore, he already has a letter ready for the Citizenship Committee, asking them for an exemption, apologising profusely for his stupidity and explaining the circumstances. However, exemptions are almost never granted for criminal offences.

All photos: Michala Clante Bendixen