Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that her country won’t stop anyone from seeking asylum, as thousands of migrants desperate to leave Hungary made their way westward to Germany and Austria.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that her country won't stop anyone from seeking asylum, as thousands of migrants desperate to leave Hungary made their way westward to Germany and Austria.

German officials recently predicted that up to 800,000 migrants would arrive by the end of the year, many of them refugees fleeing war and persecution in Syria, Iraq and Eritrea.

"The right to political asylum has no limits on the number of asylum seekers," Merkel told the Funke consortium of newspapers in an interview.

"As a strong, economically healthy country we have the strength to do what is necessary" and ensure every asylum seeker gets a fair hearing, she added.

But Merkel repeated her government's position that migrants who don't meet the criteria for asylum need to be returned to their home countries.

Even prosperous Germany has struggled to meet the demand for additional housing for the tens of thousands of migrants arriving monthly.

Merkel said her government wasn't planning to raise taxes to pay for the additional cost. But her governing coalition will be meeting Sunday to discuss how best to cope with the migrant influx.