The German Cabinet has approved new asylum laws in response to the hundreds of thousands of refugees that have entered the country since the beginning of 2015. The bill will speed up asylum procedures and related legal appeals and will bar entry into the country for some asylum seekers’ families for a period of two years. Benefits provided to asylum seekers were modified. The cabinet also designated Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia as safe countries of origin and thus it will be more difficult for refugees from those areas to find harbour in Germany. The new asylum bill comes after Germany announced last September that it was invoking temporary border controls at the nation’s southern border with Austria.