Wedding Vows Can Lock Danes Out of Their Homeland

Even if it is love at first sight, beginning a life together in Denmark is a lengthy, maddening ordeal for mixed Danish-foreign couples. New immigration laws which, opponents argue, are the strictest in the European Union, have barred over 1,000 recently married couples from living in the country. Many of these couples have opted to live across the bridge in Malmo, Sweden. This was not the intended result of the new laws, say Danish legislators, but an unavoidable result of efforts to reduce the influx of non-European immigrants, who, they argue, burden the country's social welfare system. The Danish example, while unusual, illustrates the growing unease throughout Europe over the burgeoning Muslim population, a phenomenon which has swelled the ranks of right-wing, anti-immigration political parties in many European countries. Many Danish couples fail to share their nativist sentiments, instead expressing frustration. "I haven't done anything against my country," said a Danish woman whose husband is Cuban "and yet I'm thrown out." - YaleGlobal