ATHENS, Greece (AP) – The Latest on the influx of migrants into Europe (all times local):
7:10 p.m.
Austria plans to extend border controls to Italy as it plans for possible shifts in migrant flows to the country.
An Interior Ministry statement Tuesday says checkpoints will be set up at the Silian, Brenner and Nauders-Reschenpass crossings. Eight other new check points will be established on the country’s border to Slovenia, where most of those looking to settle in Austria and further northward are now entering.
The statement also says more military personnel will be patrolling Austrian borders.
It quotes Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner that the moves are necessary “as long as there are no viable solutions on the EU outer borders.”
She is alluding to Greek problems in protecting the bloc’s external borders from the flow of migrants fleeing the Mideast and other regions of war and poverty.
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4:30 p.m.
Danish police say they have not seized any money or valuables from asylum-seekers since a contentious new law permitting them to do so came into force last month.
Police spokesman Thomas Christensen says officers have not searched migrants or their belongings, merely asking them to declare assets worth more than 10,000 kroner ($1,500). The Jan. 26 law brings asylum rules into line with welfare rules for Danes, who have to sell assets worth more than 10,000 kroner before they can receive social benefits.
Christensen said Tuesday that the cellphones of some asylum-seekers with deficient identification had been temporarily seized to establish their identities.
Last year, more than 21,000 people applied for asylum in Denmark, among the highest per capita rates in the EU and an increase of more than 40 percent on 2014.
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2:20 p.m.
French police have dismantled two suspected smuggling networks in a makeshift migrant camp near Dunkirk with a reputation for harboring people smuggling.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Tuesday that 10 people were in custody, among them suspected smugglers, after raids over the past two days at the Grande-Synthe camp.
Local media have reported two recent non-fatal shootings in the camp.
In 2015, 28 smuggling networks were dismantled in the Calais region – double the previous year, the Interior Ministry statement said, adding that 251 networks were dismantled nationally.
Up to 1,500 migrants, most trying to get to Britain, are currently in the squalid Grande-Synthe camp, east of Calais, where about 4,000 travelers stay.
At the initiative of Doctors Without Borders, the Grande-Synthe camp is being transferred shortly to another spot.
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12:20 p.m.
The Greek government says it has completed work on most of the migrant facilities it has promised its European Union partners to deliver.
But Defense Minister Panos Kammenos says the centers might not have to function to their full capacity of 24,000 people because an agreement to involve NATO in policing Greece’s sea border with Turkey will “end the immigration problem.”
Greece is the main gateway for people from the Middle East, Asia and Africa seeking a better life in Europe. About 77,000 people have reached the country’s eastern islands this year from nearby Turkey, paying smugglers for a berth on frail boats.
Government officials said Tuesday that four of five promised reception and screening centers on the islands are now functional, and the last will be ready in days.