On 9 April 2016 it was announced that Sobotka would succeed Johanna Mikl-Leitner as Austrian Interior Minister. He assumed the post on 21 April, at which time Mikl-Leitner took Sobotka's position in the Lower Austrian state government. As Minister of the Interior, Sobotka was encouraged to pursue a tougher asylum policy and to enhance police powers. After the riots at the G20 summit in Hamburg, he demanded further tightening of the right to demonstrate. Citing the rising crime rate, he demanded a reduction of the number of asylum seekers permitted into Austria. In 2017, Sobotka presented a proposal for a security policy that would grant police access to surveillance cameras on the railways, highways, and Vienna metro and that would permit them to monitor modern online communication if necessary. The proposal failed, however, because of opposition by the Social Democrats (SPÖ).