German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany needs to make a national effort to deport migrants who were refused asylum. Merkel said that when migrants came in small numbers, those who were rejected the right to stay in Germany were not deported rigorously enough. Last year’s record influx of asylum seekers showed that such soft practices must be put to an end.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Tuesday said that the country cannot handle the same number of migrant arrivals next year that it has seen in 2016, calling on other European countries to do more. In an interview with RAI state television, Renzi repeated a threat to veto the disbursement of European Union funds to countries that refuse to help Italy and Greece, who have taken in hundreds of thousands of migrants over the past three years.

What do Burlington, Vermont; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Erie, Pennsylvania have in common? Despite their different locations and economic histories and political orientations, all three have been consciously incorporating and welcoming refugees into their towns for decades. They have played this role starting with the waves of refugees to the United States from Vietnam that began in the 1970s, followed by those from Armenia, Russia, Ukraine, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, Nepal, Burma, Bhutan, Iraq, Congo, Somalia, Syria, and more.

The Federal Government will soon move to ban refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru from ever coming to Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says. Mr Turnbull said the legislation would send a clear message. "This will send the strongest possible signal to the people smugglers ... It is incredibly important that we send the clearest message," Mr Turnbull told a press conference this morning.

Vladimir Putin has waded into the migrant crisis condemning Europe's handling of asylum seekers and saying a case of child rape in Austria 'dilutes national values'. The Russian president has largely kept quiet over the refugee crisis in Europe but has now spoken out of his disbelief over its handling claiming that a continent that 'can't protect its children' has no future.

German police arrested seven Afghan asylum seekers in raids on refugee shelters today on suspicion the men repeatedly raped an Iranian teenager and filmed the sexual assault. More than 30 police joined the raids on 10 rooms in several accommodation facilities in the towns of Nagold and Wildberg in the southwestern state of Baden-Wurttemberg, said police. “The Afghan asylum seekers are suspected of having raped a 17-year-old Iranian asylum seeker several times and of having filmed the acts,” police and prosecutors said in a brief joint statement.

Residents in Munich have been enraged by plans for a migrant shelter for teenagers in their neighbourhood, with seven locals taking local authorities to court over the proposal. The wall will be built in the Neuperlach district in the south of the city where authorities say it will protect the residents from the migrant inhabitants and, at four meters, will be higher than the Berlin Wall. But authorities have got cold feet over the barrier, with some officials saying it was larger than they had planned.

Refugees in Berlin have pleaded with their host nation to avoid placing migrants under a blanket of suspicion after police commandos raided their shelter, which had been home to a man arrested over Monday night’s truck attack on a crowded Christmas market. “We are of course worried,” said Ibrahim Sufi, 26, a Syrian living in hangar 7 at the former Tempelhof airport, an imposing structure built by Adolf Hitler to showcase Nazi might and now being used to house migrants. “We are worried about how the German public will view us after this terrorist attack.

The suspects accused of setting a homeless person on fire in the Berlin underground have been identified as refugees from Syria and Libya, police confirmed. Six of them surrendered to police, while the seventh was arrested in a police operation.

Asylum seekers launched a violent riot over the death of a young woman at a migrant center in Italy. Around 25 center employees were blocked in and only allowed to leave after the police arrived, local media says. The protesters blamed the woman's death on rescue services, saying they failed to arrive in time, ANSA news agency reported on Tuesday. The 25-year-old Ivorian woman died after fainting in the shower inside a migrant center, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Venice. The authorities are still trying to determine the cause of death.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere believe that countries that cannot accept rejected asylum seekers may not receive development aid, according to recent interviews. In an interview with news magazine "Der Spiegel," Gabriel said, "those who do not cooperate sufficiently cannot hope to benefit from our development aid." During an interview on German broadcaster ARD, de Maiziere agreed, saying he "fully supports this idea."

An investigation has been opened after an African refugee drowned in Venice's Grand Canal as onlookers watched from nearby boats and filmed him with their phones. Footage shows the man, named as 22-year-old Gambian Pateh Sabally, flailing in the middle of the canal. At least three life rings were thrown into the water near him, but he did not appear to reach for them, raising speculation he wanted to kill himself.

Many have noted the historical parallels between the current debate over Syrians seeking refuge in the United States and the plight of European Jews fleeing German-occupied territories on the eve of World War II. Among the many who tried — and failed — to escape Nazi persecution: Otto Frank and his family, which included wife, Edith, and his daughters, Margot and Anne. And while the story of the family's desperate attempts ending in futility may seem remarkable today...

Ikea is planning to sell a line of rugs and textiles made by Syrian refugees in 2019, in an effort to provide jobs to people displaced by the civil war. The move will create jobs for 200 refugees, most of them women, currently living in Jordan, according to CNN. Jesper Brodin, range and supply manager at Ikea, described the situation in Syria as “a major tragedy of our time” adding that Jordan has taken great responsibility in hosting people displaced by Syria’s civil war.

In an interesting take on reusing and recycling, a government agency in the Netherlands has opened empty prisons to accommodate the influx of migrants seeking asylum. As the country’s crime rate and prison population have steadily declined for years, dozens of correctional facilities have closed altogether. So when the number of migrants started to rise—more than 50,000 entered the Netherlands last year alone—the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) saw a solution.

Austrian is planning to send troops to “protect” the European Union’s external borders against refugees. Hans Peter Doskozil, the defence minister, said Austria was one of 16 countries around the Balkan route used by more than a million migrants to journey from Greece into Europe who are cooperating on the new “border defence project”. “The western Balkan route is still not as closed as it should be,” the Social Democrat (SPÖ) minister told Die Welt.

US Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has informed Congress that the DHS is considering requiring refugees and visa applicants from seven Muslim-majority nations to hand over their social media credentials from Facebook and other sites as part of a security check. "We want to get on their social media, with passwords: What do you do, what do you say?" he told the House Committee on Homeland Security on Tuesday. "If they don't want to cooperate, then you don't come in."

Refugees in Syria will soon be receiving donated winter supplies — but they won’t know that the coats and boots keeping them warm came from Israel, an enemy state. Any logos or tags featuring Hebrew writing has been removed from the more than 100 tons of supplies collected by three Israeli groups, in order “to protect the effort and the recipients,” according to a statement.

Prosecutors are investigating two people for allegedly fabricating an account of a mass sex attack by Arab migrants in Frankfurt. Claims that a “sex rioting mob” of around 50 men assaulted a group of women over the new year were reported by German tabloid Bild earlier this month.

Some 160,000 people have demonstrated in Barcelona to demand the government allow more refugees into Spain from war-hit areas such as Syria. Marchers carrying placards and banners- many in the Catalan language - accused the Madrid government of dragging its feet over the issue. They say it has not honoured its pledge made in 2015 to allow more than 17,000 refugees into Spain within two years. Over that time, Spain has accepted only about 1,100 refugees.