Most border-crossers do not claim asylum and want to go on to Germany, says Poland

In response to claims that it is unlawfully pushing back asylum seekers into Belarus, Poland’s border guard has declared that the majority of people it has detained for illegally crossing do not apply for international protection.

Meanwhile, in one case that has drawn widespread attention, Poland’s commissioner for children’s rights has reported that a group of 20 migrants, including eight children, who were returned to Belarus last week were also not seeking asylum in Poland, and instead wanted to travel on to Germany.

In response to questions from the media about the practice of so-called “pushbacks”, Katarzyna Zdanowicz, spokeswoman for the border guard’s Podlasie branch, said that “applications are accepted from all foreigners who submit applications for international protection”.

But she added that “unfortunately, [some] foreigners do not want to submit applications in Poland” and instead “want to submit them in Germany”. They know that, if their application is denied by Poland, they will be deported, she said, quoted by Gazeta.pl.

As a result, only 44% of people detained at closed centres in Poland after being caught crossing the border have applied for international protection, according to official figures from the border guard.

On Sunday, Mikołaj Pawlak, the commissioner for children’s rights, published a report about a group of Iraqi families recently sent back across the border into Belarus. The case has drawn widespread criticism given the presence of young children in the group.

Pawlak – who was appointed with the support of the national-conservative ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party – says that the group “did not want to stay in Poland” and instead “demanded to be taken to Germany”.

The Polish authorities had “no legal grounds to transport them to Germany” as that would “breach international law” and contribute to the “illegal practice of smuggling people”, found Pawlak. Instead, they returned the group to Belarus in “safe conditions”, he said.

Pawlak argued that this did not amount to a “pushback,” meaning a forcible return of an asylum seeker, which is not permitted under international law. His office said it had “not recorded any instances” of Polish authorities using “the pushback method”.

“Migrants who after reaching the territory of Poland want to stay with us are placed in centres for foreigners and put under the international protection procedure,” said the report. As of 1 October, there are 1,490 foreigners in such facilities in Poland.

Human rights groups have, however, accused Poland of carrying out pushbacks. A digital investigation published last week by Amnesty International found that this had been the case with a group of Afghans who have been camped on the Polish-Belarusian border for weeks.

In a letter this week to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the director general of UNICEF Poland, Marek Krupiński, expressed his organisation’s “strong opposition to the actions of the Polish authorities against children who have crossed the Polish-Belarusian border”, reports Wirtualna Polska.

Pawlak’s report also cited “confirmed cases” of Belarusian authorities using children, who have been stripped in the cold weather, to persuade Polish officers to let groups through. Pawlak urged media to withhold from publishing images of children to “respect the rights of migrants, and especially children, to privacy”.

Main image credit: Agnieszka Sadowska/ Agencja Gazeta

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.