Austria plans tougher laws for refused asylum seekers
February 28, 2017
Austria's ruling coalition wants to implement a law which will let authorities stop providing food and accommodation to refugees whose asylum claims have been rejected. The UN has criticized the initiative.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/PIXSELL/V. Z. Rogulja
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Image: picture alliance/dpa/PIXSELL/V. Z. Rogulja
Speaking to reporters in the Austrian capital Vienna on Tuesday, Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said that migrants who were denied asylum would either have to leave or face the consequences.
"The first thing is basically that they don't get anything from the Austrian state if they don't have the right to stay here. Is that so hard to understand?" Sobotka asked, adding that the bill would encourage refugees to leave the country on their own.
"That is a signal for people smugglers," Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil told reporters.
According to Interior Minister Sobotka, 4,000 people who should have left the country were still receiving free services. If the law is passed, around 2,000 of these people would be affected.
Sobotka: tighter rules for people whose applications have been refusedImage: Picture-Alliance/dpa/H. Punz/APA
The proposed law introduces penalties of between 5,000 and 15,000 euros ($5,300 and $15,900) for refugees who remain in Austria. Those refusing to leave could also be detained, as a final measure by the authorities. The maximum length of their detention would be expanded from 10 to 18 months. Furthermore, refugees not telling the truth about their identities could face fines of up to 5,000 euros or three weeks in jail.
UN criticism
Austria's office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) criticized the move saying the draft law was "highly questionable" and that lawmakers needed to think about agreeing to it.
Currently, refugees in Austria get free accommodation, food, access to medical treatment and 40 euros or $42.41 every month. Migrants with rejected asylum claims would have to forego these benefits if the draft bill were approved by parliament. Austria has mainly rejected applications from Afghan, Pakistani and Nigerian asylum seekers, according to its interior ministry.
Austria took in around 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015 when hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa poured into Europe. It has since tightened immigration laws - also intended at countering the rise of the far-right Freedom Party whose candidate came close to winning the presidential elections in 2016.
mg/jm (Reuters, dpa)
Refugees stuck in Budapest as police closes train station
Refugees trying to make their way to Western Europe are stuck in Hungary after authorities closed down Budapest's main station. The station has since been reopened, but migrants are not allowed to enter.
Image: Reuters/L. Balogh
Hungary closes Budapest train station
Refugees are stranded in Budapest after Hungary closed down its main train station from which scores of people intended to travel on to Western Europe. On Monday, police allowed them free passage, thus overturning the policy of preventing refugees from boarding trains unless they had a valid visa for Europe's border-free Schengen zone. Thousands left the country for Germany and Austria.
Image: Reuters/L. Balogh
Kicked out of the station
Hundreds of refugees are stuck in Budapest. As police - some of them riot officers - started moving people out of the station, some migrants started to shout. "Germany! Germany!" the crowd of young men chanted outside the station. "We want to leave!" They also cried out for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Police is now blocking the station and only allowing those with valid visas to enter.
Image: Reuters/L. Balogh
Banned from traveling despite valid tickets
Several refugees said they spent hundreds of euros on train tickets as police reportedly told them they were free to go. Hassan, a 47-year-old from Syria, said he and two friends bought tickets to Germany, but were not allowed to leave now. "They took 125 euros [$140] for each ticket to Munich or Berlin, then they stopped and forced us from [the] station," he said.
Image: Reuters/L. Balogh
Hoping to make it to Germany and Austria
Those who managed to catch the last departing train from Budapest late on Monday arrived in Austria's capital Vienna in the early morning hours of September 1. More than 3,600 migrants reached Vienna by train on August 31. Police looked on as they boarded trains to other Austrian cities and southern Germany.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Klamar
Exhausted, but finally on a train
Lots of young men, but also large numbers of families with small, exhausted children are among those who boarded the trains to Germany and Austria. About 50,000 migrants entered Hungary in August, mostly from hotspots such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/V. Simicek
Syrian refugees allowed to stay?
Trainloads of refugees made it to Austria's city of Salzburg and Germany's Munich where police handed out water bottles to migrants waiting to get registered. According to European Union law, refugees need to apply for asylum in the country they first set foot in. But German authorities have advised officials not to send Syrians back to the first European Union country where they arrived.
Image: Reuters/M. Dalder
Refugees welcome!
Upon arrival in Austria and Germany, refugees were handed water and snacks. A refugee child arriving in Munich smiles as he's handed a plush toy.
