The Immigration Ministry has revealed that criminals will be unable to obtain Danish citizenship from now on.
Looking ahead, individuals who have received a conditional or unconditional sentence will be banned from being able to acquire Danish citizenship.
“We must put our foot down. People who have been given prison sentences should not get Danish citizenship,” said the immigration minister, Mattias Tesfaye.
Until now, people handed unconditional (suspended) sentences of under a year in prison have been able to gain citizenship after a waiting period.
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Red government, Blue footprint
The move is part of the government linking up with Blue Bloc parties Venstre, Konservative and Liberal Alliance on a new agreement pertaining to citizenship rights.
The agreement also includes stiffer penalties for people who have been fined over 3,000 kroner due to negative social control, and for those who have been in breach of the immigration law and the social fraud law.
From now on, those mentioned above will need to wait six years before being allowed to become citizens.
Other aspects of the agreement include:
– investigating whether it is possible to further expand the scope of stripping people of citizenship due to crime
– employment criteria that requires citizenship applicants to have worked full-time or be self-employed for at least three years and six months within four years preceding
– five questions pertaining to Danish values being added to the citizenship test
– official citizenship notifications being divided into groups to show how many applicants are from Nordic countries, other western countries, MENAP (Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) countries and Turkey, and other non-western countries. Currently this information is presented in alphabetical order.
