Early in the fall semester, I published an article here in The Gustavian Weekly regarding the injustice of civil asset forfeiture, a process by which United States police officers and federal agents can seize the property of citizens without charging the citizens with a crime.

Now, I am obligated to call attention to the atrocity of migrant asset seizure occurring in Europe. The so-called “migrant assets bill” is gaining ground despite the protests of the United Nations and compassionate human beings.

Denmark recently passed a bill into law that compels all incoming refugees to forfeit any assets they bring with them, including personal belongings such as jewelry or electronics, worth more than $1,450. Similar in many aspects to civil asset forfeiture, this law is made more reprehensible by the circumstances in which it is being carried out.

Denmark’s new law forces asylum seekers to come into a foreign country with next to nothing while refusing to acknowledge that this and similar policies will only contribute to a greater sense of desperation in the refugee population. The asylum seekers are unlikely to find jobs in a country that is prejudiced against them; even if they do, it is also unlikely they will receive fair wages in a country that wants them to leave.

Denmark is creating an environment in which asylum seekers are painted as leeches by justifying this policy with the redirection of the forfeiture money to refugee housing and feeding costs.

However, I think it is worth noting that if the refugees come in with enough money to make a dent in their living costs, then they will not need to use the government resources in the first place. These are people leaving behind a battle-scarred country for a new and hopefully better life, yet Denmark and other nations with similar asset seizure policies are setting them up for failure.

Forcing asylum seekers to be on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder by imposing poverty on them will only cause resentment and prejudices. This law passed in the Danish parliament 81 to 27, with 1 abstaining and 70 absent. I am disgusted that 81 people with political power concluded that this law was acceptable for any reason. Why they thought making people desperate is a good solution to their “migrant problem” is beyond me.

This law will just lead to unrest and escalation of tension between refugees and citizens; I can think of no situation in which this law leads to healthy relationships between the two demographics. Denmark is understandably reluctant to accept more asylum seekers given the current anti-immigrant tensions, but that does not excuse this blatant injustice.

Government officials are not shy about using the law as a deterrent, but it is safe to say the refugees are not too happy about having to abandon their homes only to move into countries with laws reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

I find it unlikely that this bill is the product of rational thought; irrational fear is the more likely motivator. The refugees only have so many places they can go and few resources available to them when they get there.

They should not be expected to stay in dangerous situations, nor should they be punished for asking for help. Denmark and other nations are using these policies as deterrents, but in doing so they reveal to the rest of the world that their lawmakers irrationally view outsiders as lesser beings.

As I observe the themes of fear and intolerance in the news more and more often, I worry that the media and politicians are feeding the notion that people who do not belong to the majority are somehow inferior. This notion is baseless and created by the fear that somehow “the other” is a threat to one’s preferred way of life.

One Danish lawmaker stated in a CNN interview, “there’s the need to tighten the rules on immigration in order to keep European culture.” This insensitive remark was stated by the spokesperson for the Danish People’s Party, a party receiving a little over 20% of the vote while running on an anti-immigrant platform.

This sentence betrays no compassion for the suffering of asylum seekers and casually accuses them of being cultural usurpers.

The Danish People’s Party disguises their fear of the other as cultural pride, but no one should be proud of a country that is systematically forcing a group of people into government-mandated poverty based on their country of origin.

Asylum seekers need somewhere safe to go, yet Europe continues to heartlessly turn them away or make them so miserable they want to go somewhere else. Don’t people understand that closing the borders will just leave more bodies piled up outside? And sowing fear of refugees in the population will only lead to more feelings of hate and acts of violence within the country.

Why can’t these supposed world leaders and representatives stand against the fickle hatred of the masses and do the right thing for humanity as a whole? They should feel compassion for other human beings regardless of superficial differences.

Unfortunately, I know the answer: humanity is flawed in that we are selfish, and if a million others must die so that one of “us” can live a comfortable life, then so be it.

This is the attitude that must be changed, starting with the voters who determine whether their country will be for or against humanity.

When the election comes around this November, I hope to find myself in a country that is for humanity, rather than a country that has allowed short-term and irrational fear to corrupt its principles. In which country do you want to live?