Polish “citizen patrols” formed on German border to prevent migrant returns

Jun 29, 2025 | Featured, Law, Politics, Society

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

Self-declared “citizen patrols” – some of them hundreds strong – have gathered on the Polish side of the border with Germany to oppose returns of migrants whom the German authorities have found to have entered illegally from Poland.

Over the last two years, Germany has sent back thousands of such migrants, prompting a growing backlash in Poland. The practice has been criticised by the Polish government, which is in turn facing accusations from the right-wing opposition that it is taking too little action in response.

On Saturday, a group of around 200 residents of Szczecin, a Polish city near the German border, and the surrounding area blocked a road by walking back and forth across a pedestrian crossing.

 

“We walk to the border post and back. Just so that the German police don’t bring us migrants,” one participant told local broadcaster Radio Szczecin.

“I would like to defend Poland’s borders,” said another. “It is not our place to do this, but it is a signal to the government.”

Over the previous days, groups of football fans from the nearby towns of Police and Świnoujście had also organised similar “citizen patrols” on the German border, displaying banners saying “Stop illegal immigration”. On Friday, over 300 people gathered there, reports the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

Video shared by the fans groups showed at least one clash with police officers, who appeared to use pepper spray against some of those who had gathered.

On Friday, the provincial police headquarters in Szczecin issued a statement confirming that one officer had “used a direct coercive measure in the form of pepper spray against a person who did not comply with his orders”.

The statement added that an investigation has been launched in order to explain why the officer had intervened in that way and whether they had acted in accordance with applicable regulations.

The border protests have received support from Poland’s two main opposition parties – the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) and national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) – which have also condemned the alleged lack of response by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government.

“Poland’s western border is ceasing to exist!” wrote Mariusz Błaszczak, a deputy leader of PiS and former defence minister, today. “Illegal migrants are regularly being transferred to us from Germany, and Tusk’s government is pretending that nothing is happening.”

“Scenes from border towns are beginning to resemble those from Berlin, Paris or Stockholm – groups of illegal migrants sleeping on benches, in parks, wandering aimlessly,” he added.

“The Germans have lost all inhibitions!” declared Krzysztof Bosak, one of Confederation’s leaders. “They’re bringing in entire cars full of these lMMlGRANTS, and the Polish border guard has their hands tied. Our officers are being treated like a FREE TAXI for illegal immigrants!”

Amid the growing criticism, Poland’s interior ministry, which is responsible for the police and border guard, issued a statement calling on people to “stop [spreading] fake news”.

“The claim that Germany is transferring migrants to Poland is untrue,” wrote the ministry. “We are mostly dealing with foreigners who were in Poland (most of them legally) and who then attempt to enter Germany but are denied entry due to border controls.”

In a further statement, the ministry also noted that the decision by Germany to reinstate controls on the Polish border happened in 2023, when PiS was in power, and “stemmed from the lack of a responsible and safe migration policy in Poland” before the current government came to office.

The interior ministry’s spokesman, Jacek Dobrzyński, meanwhile, noted that transfers of asylum seekers from Germany to Poland under the EU’s so-called Dublin Regulation were at a higher level under PiS than now.

Official data obtained earlier this year by Polish media showed that, between January 2024 and February 2025, Germany returned to Poland over 11,000 migrants who had unlawfully crossed the Polish-German border.

There are three ways in which such returns take place. The first is the Dublin Regulation, which stipulates that, if an asylum seeker submits a claim for international protection in one EU member state but then moves to another before it is processed, they can be returned to the original member state.

The second, a so-called “readmission procedure”, is based on a bilateral agreement between the two countries that allows the return of other types of migrants who have illegally moved from Poland to Germany

A third possibility relates to the controls that Germany reintroduced on the Polish border in 2023 in response to illegal immigration. It allows the German authorities to turn back those who have tried to cross unlawfully. Such returns are now by far the most numerous.

In March, in response to growing domestic criticism, Tusk declared that he had told Berlin that Poland would stop implementing agreements on migrant transfers, such as the Dublin Convention. “We will not accept migrants from other European countries,” declared the prime minister.

However, since then, migrant transfers from Germany have continued and Poland has not withdrawn from any agreements.

Earlier this month, Tusk announced that it is “very likely” Poland will soon introduce “partial controls” on its border with Germany in response to migrant returns. However, that has not yet happened either.

“Where is the ‘sealing of the border’ Tusk promised?” asked Błaszczak today. “In the name of subservience to Berlin, Tusk is surrendering Polish security.”


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: Cezary Aszkielowicz / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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