The state of Bavaria Friday threatened to take the German government to court if it fails to take immediate steps to limit the flow of asylum-seekers to Germany. At a news conference in Munich following a meeting of the Bavarian Cabinet, state officials continued their war of words with Berlin, threatening to take matters into their own hands if the flow of refugees did not stop. Over 200,000 migrants are estimated to have entered Germany since the beginning of September, the vast majority over the Austrian border into Bavaria. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann spoke of a "massive, uncontrolled influx" that he said had pushed the state to the brink. "We agreed that if the federal government does not take effective steps soon to limit the continued flow of asylum-seekers ... Bavaria reserves the right to file a complaint with the Constitutional Court." Chancellor Angela Merkel has made clear that she will not introduce a refugee cap, telling ARD television in an interview Wednesday that this would not work. "The problem is, you can't shut the borders," Merkel said. "Then we'd need a 3,000-kilometer fence and we've seen in Hungary what happens when you build a fence. People find other ways." Meanwhile, a right-wing German party plans to lodge a legal complaint against Merkel, accusing her of "people smuggling" for allowing thousands of asylum-seekers into the country after they got stuck on the Hungarian border. The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) said it would make the complaint to the Berlin public prosecutor's office, hoping that it would open preliminary proceedings against the chancellor. Responding to the AfD move, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Germany was governed by the rule of law and that citizens were free to make legal complaints as they saw fit.
