Europe's 'travel ban',

US President Donald Trump is expected to sign a new executive order this week that would temporarily halt travel from citizens of seven nations he says pose a high risk of terrorism.

Before it was halted in the courts, his initial order caused chaos at airports and prompted noutrage around the world. German chancellor Angela Merkel warned against imposing a "general suspicion" on all Muslims; French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that welcoming refugees was "a duty of solidarity."

But the reality is that many European countries have curbed their own refugee programs.

Since the arrival of over one million migrants and refugees in Europe in 2015, governments across Europe have sought to fortify their countries' borders with fences, walls and guards against future mass migrations.

"The year 2015 must not be allowed to be repeated," said Austria's Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil.

This month, representatives from 15 countries met to discuss fortifying their borders to make it harder for migrants to reach central and western parts of Europe.

And earlier this year, EU leaders outlined plans to "stem the flow" of migrants traveling across the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, and boost the ability of the EU to send people back.

"The key priority is reducing the flow without any consideration for the causes of migration," said Dr Nando Sigona, an expert in migration at Birmingham University's School of Social Policy, told CNN.

"By closing down the routes they are making people even more vulnerable to danger and violence."

The UK government recently announced it was halting a program to resettle lone refugee children, after 350 had been brought to Britain. Campaigners had hoped that 3,000 children would benefit from the scheme, introduced last year.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the House of Commons the government did not want the so-called Dubs amendment to act as a "pull factor" encouraging unaccompanied minors to travel to Europe: "We do not want to incentivize perilous journeys to Europe, particularly by the most vulnerable children."

Alfred Dubs, who came to the UK as a child refugee on the "Kindertransport" from the Czech Republic in 1939 and who designed the program, expressed his dismay at the decision. "It's bitterly disappointing," the Labour politician told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "I think they wanted to shut the thing down and found any excuse to do it."

NGO Help Refugees is taking legal action against the government over their handling of the Dubs amendment. In a statement, they allege that the Home Secretary's "failure to implement her Dubs duties towards unaccompanied children in Calais ... contributed to [them] being exposed to serious human rights violations." The case will be heard in June.

The government's move is just the latest in a series of measures designed to reduce the number of child refugees eligible to come to the UK.

In November 2016, the Home Office issued new guidance barring unaccompanied refugees from Afghanistan, Yemen and Eritrea older than 12, who were living in the now-demolished "Jungle" camp at Calais in northern France, from entering the UK if they have no family there.

The following month the government ended the process of transferring children from France after resettling 750 of the 1,900 registered minors, according to Human Rights Watch. Rudd said she was "proud" of the UK government's "active approach to helping and sheltering the most vulnerable."

More than 250,000 people were given refugee status in Germany in 2016, many of whom had arrived the previous year when Chancellor Angela Merkel threw the country's doors open to refugees, but there are signs that attitudes are hardening.

In accordance with European Commission recommendations, from March, Germany will begin returning asylum seekers to Greece, if that was the first safe country in which they arrived, a spokeswoman for the German Ministry for the Interior told CNN. This process was halted in 2011 due to "systemic deficiencies in the Greek asylum system."

Pro Asyl, a German organization that advocates for the rights of refugees criticized the decision to send "more people into the miserable conditions" in Greece and condemned the transfer system as "inhumane."

A recent report by Amnesty International highlighted the "dire conditions" in Greek camps, citing "overcrowding, freezing temperatures, lack of hot water and heating, poor hygiene, bad nutrition, inadequate medical care, violence and hate-motivated attacks."

In a further sign of changing views, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere recently announced that border controls with Austria -- introduced as a short-term measure in September 2015 -- would continue indefinitely.