The refugees were transferred to reception centres inland or were sent on to Sentilj, the main point of entry into Austria.
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According to a contentious bill, those granted asylum will be reassessed after three years.
Austria’s cabinet proposed a bill on Tuesday to deter Afghan migrants from coming to the country located along a major migration route across Europe and facing record numbers of asylum requests this year.
The new law is a “signal that asylum is something which is temporary”, Werner Faymann, the Austrian chancellor, said.
As reported by The Local, this is part of a package of EU-wide measures which are being put together at a conference in Sarajevo, at which Austria’s Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner is a keynote speaker. “But they closed the border and it is very hard for us because it is cold and it is getting dark and at night time it is very cold here”, she said.
The small Alpine country is the first west European country that hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East and beyond reach on their trek westward, and a major conduit for those moving on toward Germany and northern Europe.
The new legislation will also limit the rights of those allowed to stay in the country to bring family members to live with them.
They will have to wait three years before family members can join them, and prove a sufficient income to support them.
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The first asylum-seekers left Italy under the relocation plan on October 9, although a few European Union member states such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland still oppose the mandatory quotas. Statistics have shown that Afghans have made up 10,500 of the 46,000 asylum applications Austria has received since the beginning of the year.
