The Danish Immigration Service has found itself in a crossfire of disastrous allegations concerning corruption at a level practically unprecedented in Danish administration (within the set of known cases, of course). Given the present knowledge the institution is in dire legal difficulties.
The vice director admits today that she cannot give guarantees against additional problems given the current “campaign” against the Service. Let me give a peace of free communication advice. What you want to say is this: “Given that we are taking our problems extremely seriously, leaving no stone unturned I cannot guarantee that still-hidden cases will not turn up but I can guarantee that no new cases will be added to this pile because of our new procedures for avoiding such scandals”. That’s what you want to say. You do not want to blame the media. Trust me.
Adding to the oddities, the right-wing Danish People’s Party declares today that it will not protect the minister of immigration affairs if it turns out that she was aware of the situation in the service. Excuse me, the person legally responsible now has to have been aware of the situation? Such an approach to administrative responsibility is of course likely to create a veil of ignorance around all ministers so that they can rightfully claim that, no, we really were not aware of the situation.
But then again, the Danish People’s Party, never lost much sleep over immigration bureaucracy irregularities.