Getty ImagesDonald Tusk claims Russia and Belarus are encouraging immigration to Poland in a bid to destabilize the EU
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced plans to temporarily suspend asylum rights as part of a new migration strategy to combat irregular migration.
Speaking at a meeting of the centre-right political group Civic Union in Warsaw, Tusk said Belarusian and Russian-backed smugglers were abusing asylum rights.
Since 2021, Poland has seen a significant increase in the number of people illegally entering the country from Belarus, mainly from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Warsaw has accused Belarus and Russia of a “hybrid war” and directed migrant flows toward the European Union in an effort to destabilize it. Both countries deny this.
When the immigration crisis began in August 2021, in that month alone eight times as many people attempted to cross the border illegally as in all of 2020. Dozens of people continue to attempt to cross the border every day.
Tusk said he would present a new immigration policy at a government meeting on October 15.
“One element of the migration strategy will be a regional temporary suspension of the right to asylum,” the Prime Minister said. “I demand this and I demand that this decision be recognized in Europe,” he added.
Under international law, states are obliged to provide people with the right to apply for asylum. Tusk did not say how he would justify the move to EU member states.
“We know very well how this right to asylum is being used by Lukashenko and Putin, by smugglers and traffickers, and how it is being used against the very essence of the right to asylum. ” he said. “Poland must regain 100% control over who comes to Poland,” he added.
Many migrants entering the country from Belarus do not stay there but instead enter Germany. This trend led Berlin to introduce checks on its border with Poland.
Mr Tusk’s pro-EU coalition government continued the hard-line immigration policies implemented by the previous right-wing Law and Justice government, acknowledging the backlash and building a 5.5-metre-high iron fence along 186 kilometers (115 miles) of the border. , which surprised many people. with Belarus.
Reuters
Dozens of people attempt to enter Poland every day, many continuing on to Germany.
Although it has taken a tough stance on immigration from Middle Eastern and Asian countries, this Law and Justice-led government issued the highest number of annual residence and work permits in the entire EU for most of its tenure.
Mr. Tusk’s coalition continued its pushback policy, reintroducing exclusion zones on parts of the border. In July, after a 21-year-old soldier was stabbed to death by a migrant at the border, the government pushed through parliament to decriminalize the use of firearms by security forces for self-defense in certain circumstances.
Opinion polls show that the majority of the public supports hard-liners, with 86% of respondents supporting security services using weapons in self-defense.
Indeed, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski cited Citizens United’s tough immigration policies as a key factor in its success in last October’s elections.
“I don’t think we would have won if we hadn’t outmaneuvered the then right-wing ruling party on immigration, and if we hadn’t convinced voters that we would be as tough as the previous government on the physical defense of Poland’s borders.” So we neutralized this problem,” Sikorski told an audience at the John Hopkins School of International Studies in Washington in September.
But human rights groups have expressed concerns about the new government’s immigration policies. NGOs estimate that more than 130 migrants have died on both sides of Belarus’ borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia since the crisis began.
Malgorzata Šleka, director of the Warsaw-based Helsinki Human Rights Foundation, told the BBC: “I never thought of Donald Tusk as a human rights defender, but this is an all-time low.”
“There is a humanitarian crisis at the border, but it is also an open migration route. We need to find a space for rational debate that is not too populist-driven,” she added.
