Austria’s Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka has said that refugees who break the law should have no right to asylum in the country.

“The question is whether someone who is a lawbreaker automatically loses their asylum status with the legal sentencing. For me, that would be a conceivable measure to consider,” thelocal.at quoted Sobotka as telling ?sterreich newspaper on Monday.

The measure could apply to persons who have been already been granted refugee status, as well as those awaiting an answer to their asylum applications, Sobotka has said.

His proposal comes as a new survey conducted by researchers GfK has revealed that a 79% of Austrian citizens agree that refugees who have broken the law should be expelled from the country. A further 14% were “probably” in agreement with the idea, according to thelocal.at.