In Austria, asylum judges who mostly hear appeals from men are more lenient towards women appearing in court. A recent study has also found that female judges are more likely than male judges to grant asylum.
Austria has passed a law intended to ban Muslim girls from wearing a headscarf in primary schools. The Jewish yarmulke and Sikh patka are not included in the new measure.
Asylum seekers in Lower Austria are to be issued with "Ten Commandments of Immigration" by regional authorities. Included in the edicts is a requirement for migrants to show gratitude to Austria.
Austria’s far-right government has pegged social benefits to German language skills and family size. While the government defended the reform, the cuts were met with criticism by opposition parties and UNHCR.
The far-right FPÖ party in Austria has come under fire for a poem by one of their local officials that compared migrants with rats. Kurz and opposition leaders strongly condemned the racist poem. The author of the poem has resigned.
The Austrian government announced that it would be maintaining the border controls it has on the frontier with neighboring countries Slovenia and Hungary at least until November 2019.
Authorities have raided the Austrian Identitarian Movement leader Martin Sellner's Vienna apartment. His group received a larger-than-usual donation from a email address linked to the suspected Christchurch terrorist.
In the future, asylum-seekers could be held without a court order if deemed a security risk. The move is part of larger efforts to discourage asylum requests, including renaming reception areas as "departure centers."
Leading employers in Austria are turning to refugees as potential employees despite the government’s anti-immigration policies. Economic growth in the country is steady but there is a lack of labor.
The Libyan prime minister has called on those concerned about the country's migrant camps to help by taking in, or taking back, migrants. This follows comments from Austria's president that refugees should not be sent back to Libya, where tens of thousands of people are detained in terrible conditions.
In Austria, a refugee from Pakistan is to be sent back to his homeland despite church asylum, Spiegel Online reports. He fears that Islamists seek to kill him at home because he sought sanctuary in a Christian monastery.
Herbert Kickl, Austria's far-right populist interior minister, came out for tough asylum laws. He even questioned the European Convention on Human Rights, infuriating Austria's president and Amnesty International.