Bavarian interior minister Joachin Herrmann, declared that any asylum seekers carrying more than €750 (around £570) could expect to have their property or cash confiscated to pay for their stay.

Previous year roughly 1.1 million migrants traveled to Germany after Chancellor Angela Merkel rolled out the welcome mat.

In neighbouring Baden-Württemberg, asylum seekers can only keep money and valuables worth €350 (£265).

He said: ‘The practice in Bavaria and the federal rules set out in law correspond in substance with the process in Switzerland’.

The crackdown has begun after public outrage and protests over the influx of refugees.

“That includes, for example, family jewelry”. It’s one of the befuddling issues about this entire crisis that when inviting people to enter your country from regions of the world where terrorism is rampant, it’s more important to appear tolerant and welcoming than it is to take adequate measures to protect the citizenry. “Even if some prejudices persist – you don’t have it any better as an asylum seeker as someone on unemployment benefit”, she added.

‘Asylum seekers must repay the costs of accommodation and care to the state’.

The UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, slammed Copenhagen’s proposals, arguing that such measures “could fuel fear (and) xenophobia”.

Ulla Jelpke of Germany’s Left party said: ‘Those who apply for asylum are exercising their basic rights (under the German constitution). The confiscated items are unlikely to exceed the total cost of processing a refugee, since most migrants remain on welfare for several months or even years.

A third explanation is that the refugees may not have existed in the first place – because some asylum seekers have been found to apply multiple times in an attempt to get sent to the city of their choice.

Officials in Bavaria and other southern states seeing high numbers of asylum seekers arriving from Austria are following Denmark and Switzerland to implement the controversial practice.

The cut-off for when authorities start taking cash and valuables varies from country to country, ranging from $400 to $1,500. On New Year’s Eve, a series of attacks was carried out by as many as 1,000 men, many described as being of Middle Eastern or North African origin, in Cologne. But the Daily Mail notes that of all the refugees that came in, only 476,649 of them have registered for asylum, meaning roughly 600,000 are essentially lost.