The bloodshed unleashed by Islamist extremists in Paris has deepened fears of Muslims in Central Europe and is threatening to create an atmosphere even less welcoming for those fleeing war in the Middle East.
On the Slovenian-Austrian border over the weekend, the armies of both nations strip-searched migrants on their westward march amid heightened security, causing large numbers to build up at a refugee camp.
That one of the suicide bombers appears to be a Syrian who passed through Greece in October is also deepening a belief among many that the refugees should be seen as potential terrorists.
Joanna Fomina, a migration expert at the Polish Academy of Sciences, said expressions of anti-Muslim sentiment have exploded online since the Paris attacks, with some people essentially saying "I told you so" or saying Muslims should be gassed liked Jews during the Holocaust.
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"This attack will increase public and political polarization over the issue of refugees, convincing those who are already prejudiced that their fears are well-grounded," Fomina said.
On Monday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has taken a prominent anti-migrant stance, criticized the EU as "adrift."
"It is weak, uncertain and paralyzed," he told the Parliament in Budapest. "In Brussels they continue to say that immigration is good, even while we get new evidence every day that immigration is a bad thing."
Recalling that Hungary been criticized as inhumane for building fences on its borders to keep migrants out, Orban said: "But the question is: What is more humane? To close the borders to illegal border-crossers or put the lives of innocent European citizens at risk?"
On Monday in Poland, the right-wing government of Prime Minister Beata Szydlo was sworn in. Her Law and Justice party won a decisive victory in an election last month, and analysts believe it gained support from its anti-migrant statements.
The country’s new foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski proposed helping Syrian arrivals in Europe form an army that could invade Syria.
"The tens of thousands of young Syrians who jump out of the rubber rafts and don't ask for water, food or clothes but ask where they can charge their mobile phones could, with our help, fight to get their country back," Waszczykowski said in Polish TV interview, Sunday.