Merkel has rejected an upper limit on those seeking refuge in Germany. Bavaria wants migrants to be forced to settle in the first European Union country in which they arrive.

‘Refugee inflow should be limited’

. “We need to be very vigilant, so I repeat my demand to Berlin to limit immigration”, he added, calling for better protection of the EU’s external borders.

He said the influx was not posing a terrorism threat, but “it’s a question of criminality in the broadest sense”. He says Germany also needs to quickly send home those not truly needing asylum. “If Bavaria starts to slow down the flow of refugees and to put more controls in place, then Austria will be forced to take similar measures”, said Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the Austrian interior minister.

Another measure envisages limiting the right of family reunification for asylums seekers. Additionally, the state plans to finance the construction of 28,000 new apartments that could be used as social housing by 2019.

After the meeting, the Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann threatened to take the government to court if it did not limit the flow of asylum seekers.

The state of Bavaria is threatening to challenge Angela Merkel‘s open door refugee policy in Germany’s highest court, its leader said on Friday, at the same time as he announced a multimillion euro four-year plan to integrate the tens of thousands who are already in the state.

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) said on Friday it would make the complaint to the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, hoping that it would open preliminary proceedings against the chancellor.

“Angela Merkel has operated as a smuggler”, deputy party leader Alexander Gauland said, as quoted by Reuters.

AfD co-chairwoman Frauke Petry said Germany’s capacities to accept new migrants had been exhausted and decried the government for failing to offer a unified solution.

And it scored 9% in southern Bavaria, Germany’s main gateway for migrants whose numbers are expected to reach one million this year.

In recent months, Germany has seen growing violence against refugees.

Amid the historic migrant influx, she implored citizens to harness the bold can-do spirit of Germany’s reunification a quarter-century ago, and to remember that granting safe haven to persecuted people is a core European ideal.