Danish search for migrant valuables brings in ‘nothing’

Denmark’s controversial law allowing police to search asylum seekers and confiscate their valuables to help pay for their accommodation has raised no money in its first 11 days, police say on Tuesday.

The new rules, which allow for cash or items without “sentimental value” — hence no wedding rings — to be seized if they are worth more than 10,000 kroner (1,340 euros, $1,498), have brought in “nothing” since coming into force on February 5, a police spokesman tells AFP.

Last week 230 people applied for asylum in Denmark, according to the Danish Immigration Service.

“I don’t think it has ever been about raising money,” says Pernille Skipper, a spokeswoman for the left-wing Red Green Alliance party.

Rather, the “symbolic” move was aimed at “scaring refugees into traveling to other European countries than Denmark,” she adds.

— AFP

A migrant wrapped in a blanket to keep warm waits at a registration camp in southern Serbian town of Presevo on January 22, 2016, after crossing the Macedonian border. (AFP / DIMITAR DILKOFF)