Kim Hjelmgaard

USA TODAY

BERLIN — As a backlash against a flood of migrants spreads, Europe's most welcoming country on Wednesday weighed legislation to make it easier to deport refugees and foreigners found guilty of serious crimes.

The legislative move by the German Parliament underscores the anti-immigrant public outcry since allegations surfaced about sexual assaults by migrants against hundreds of women in Cologne and other cities on New Year's Eve.

Police have received 561 criminal complaints related to the Dec. 31 assaults that include two rape allegations. At least 19 men are being investigated in the attacks, including asylum seekers and foreign nationals from Algeria, Morocco, Iran, Syria and Germany, the federal police said.

German police investigate New Year's Eve sexual assaults

A poll this week by the YouGov online research firm showed that 62% of Germans now say there are too many asylum seekers in the country, a jump from 53% in November.

In Denmark, legislators debated Wednesday a controversial proposal to seize cash and other assets worth more than $1,450 from migrants entering the country to cover the cost of their stay. The U.N.’s refugee agency complained that the measure is intended to tell migrants to stay away.

Germany accepted more than 1 million migrants last year from conflict zones such as Syria, Iraq and Eritrea — far more than any other nation in Europe. But the welcome mat for refugees laid out by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the right thing to do is being pulled back a bit.

Reporter's notebook: Walking with migrants

Merkel backs the proposal to deport migrants for crimes such as homicide and rape.

"What happened on New Year's Eve was shocking for the German people," said Shamil Shams, a Pakistani journalist who is a longtime German resident. "The people behind the events in Cologne are not crazy or sexually frustrated. They just don't want to integrate ... and they despise (European) values."

Aiman Mazyek, chairman of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, said his organization has seen a massive spike in threats since the events in Cologne.

"We've received an incredible number of hate calls. You could call it telephone terror. This is a new thing," Mazyek told state broadcaster Deutsche Welle on Tuesday. He said the threats were worse than what the group saw after the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

Foreigners attacked in Cologne after mass sexual assaults

Right-wing, anti-immigration groups that hold weekly protests across Germany were quick to capitalize on the Cologne sexual assaults.

Tatjana Festerling, a leading speaker for one such group called PEGIDA, said Monday in Leipzig that Muslim refugees had declared "sex jihad," a terror attack against blond, white women in Germany.

Later that evening, about 200 supporters of PEGIDA went on a rampage in the Connewitz neighborhood of Leipzig, vandalizing buildings, setting off fireworks and smashing windows. At about the same time in the city's center, a few thousand peaceful protesters held signs urging Merkel to "take your Muslims with you and get lost."

Austrian police, meanwhile, said the number of migrants being turned back by Germany on its border has increased to about 200 per day, compared with 60 a day in December. And the German interior ministry has admitted that it has been deporting more migrants.

The German foreign ministry said this week that the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin has issued about 1,400 passports to Iraqi migrants who now want to return to their country. The ministry did not give a reason for the increase, but told Reuters that only 150 passports had been issued there by the end of last October.

"Our Willkommenskultur (refugees welcome) is getting harder to spot," Berlin resident Jakob Feller said Wednesday.