Large fall in attempted illegal border crossings after Poland’s asylum ban

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In the two months since Poland suspended the right to claim asylum for migrants crossing its border from Belarus, the numbers of attempted crossings and applications for international protection have significantly fallen, according to data from the Polish border guard.

They show that only a handful of asylum applications have been filed since the ban went into place – from individuals deemed vulnerable and therefore exempted from the measures – compared to hundreds in the same period last year. Meanwhile, attempted illegal crossings have fallen by almost half over the same period.

On 27 March, Poland’s government suspended asylum rights at the Belarus border under a new law introduced in response to a migration crisis orchestrated by Minsk, which has helped tens of thousands of people – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – try to illegally enter the European Union.

According to data provided by the border guard to the Rzeczpospolita daily, since the measures were put in place, only 29 applications from individuals exempted from the ban were accepted for processing. They included two pregnant women from Cameroon, two 17-year-olds from Syria and Yemen, and a 77-year-old Russian woman.

Meanwhile, 23 attempted applications for asylum were rejected under the tougher new rules because the applicants were not deemed vulnerable. It is likely that they were immediately returned over the border into Belarus, as the new law allows.

Further border guard data cited by Rzeczpospolita also indicates that the new asylum ban – as well as other measures to toughen security at the border – has had an effect in discouraging migrants from trying to cross.

In the two months since the measure was put in place, the border guard has detected around 6,100 attempts to illegally cross the Belarus border. That was a 48% decrease on the figure of 11,700 recorded in the same period last year.

In addition to the asylum ban, Poland has also introduced an exclusion zone on its side of the border in an effort to ease the work of officers there and prevent the entry of people smugglers.

It has also sought to increase and enhance physical barriers and electronic monitoring along the frontier, and has loosened firearms rules for uniformed officers serving there. As a result of such measures, the number of attempted crossings had already been falling.

Poland has argued that its asylum ban is necessary because existing asylum rules were not designed to accommodate the deliberate instrumentalisation of migration by hostile states. Last year, the country received its highest ever number of asylum applications.

It has received support from Brussels, with the European Union’s commissioner for internal affairs and migration, Magnus Brunner, last month visiting the Polish-Belarusian border alongside Poland’s interior minister Tomasz Siemoniak.

Brunner declared that Poland’s decision to suspend asylum claims is “correct under EU law” and praised the country for protecting the EU’s eastern frontier from “weaponised” migration, calling it “Europe’s first line of defence”.

However, human rights groups – including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Poland’s own human rights commissioner – have declared that the asylum ban violates not only international law but also Poland’s own constitution.

They also say it will cause real harm to vulnerable asylum seekers, who face being pushed back over the border into Belarus.

Last week, Poland’s parliament voted almost unanimously to extend the suspension of the right to claim asylum beyond the initial 60-day period that was introduced by the government.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Grzegorz Dabrowski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.