Germany is changing its approach to the biggest crisis facing Europe
The new rules come as Chancellor Angela Merkel's approval rating hit its lowest point since 2011. The rules also come after mass New Year's Eve sexual attacks on women in Cologne involving many men of Middle Eastern or North African origin.
On Wednesday, the German cabinet approved a plan that excluded three North African nations from its asylum list - Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, The New York Times reports. The countries are now designated as safe states, and those who came to Germany from the countries now face deportation.
Those three countries are also the countries of origin for many of the men who were found to have committed the Cologne assaults. The current political schism in Germany, and the recently announced shift on asylum, is the direct fallout of the New Year's Eve attacks in Cologne.
That night, a group of more than 1,000 men of North African and Middle Eastern descent allegedly broke up into smaller groups and robbed and sexually attacked women around the main train station in Cologne, with more than 650 police reports alleging crimes spanning robbery to sexual molestation and rape being filed in the three weeks that followed.