- 1 Interview conducted on July 8, 2022, Warsaw.
1“It’s a schizophrenic situation: On the one hand we are treated as terrorists, on the other as heroes of the humanitarian caravan”.1 This is how the representative of a Polish association for foreigners describes the situation in her country. She is referring to the ambiguous attitude of the Polish government, and more broadly of national and international public opinion, towards those who bring active support to people forced into exile on Poland’s eastern borders. In the northern section, bordering Belarus, the Polish State has built a wall, legalized pushbacks and criminalized solidarity networks. Meanwhile, the southern border with the Ukraine has become the highly publicized stage for European solidarity with Ukrainian refugees arriving in Poland as victims of the Russian military invasion. The difference in treatment between migrants from former colonies, who are the brunt of racism and are instrumentalized by the Belarusian regime, and migrants perceived as white and Christian leaving Ukraine, reveals the workings behind the European migratory imaginary.
2From the point of view of Border Studies, this space approximately 1,000 kilometers long is particularly interesting because it is a place where the filter function of the border (Streiff-Fenart, 2018) and its physical, symbolic, and social transformations (Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013) find their greatest expression.
- 2 They were carried out in January 2022, when the two authors visited Warsaw and the Bialystok region (...)
3Two inquiries carried out in the region,2 while not fieldwork per se, provide a fresh perspective on continuities and discontinuities in the management of migratory flows. They highlight the way in which the Polish State, on the front lines of the European Union (EU), develops and justifies divergent public policies regarding welcoming refugees, and how, on the field, solidarity workers deal with these different policies.
4European states have almost unanimously shared a sudden willingness to welcome Ukrainians while rejecting migration from elsewhere for more than twenty-five years. While migration policy may seem to be imposed by the EU,3 it reflects to a certain extent the position of each individual country. However, in every region facing migration issues, the public problem is intertwined with a specific social, historical and political reality that determines how the border is experienced not only by migrants, but also by the sedentary people involved (Giliberti and Potot, 2021a). Without neglecting international influence, it is important to examine the Polish context to understand what is happening on its borders.
5Poland is a country of thwarted nationalism. It disappeared from the map several times during German and Russian occupation; it played a leading role in the history of anti-Semitism and was therefore rejected as one of the most stigmatized losers of the Second World War (Potel, 2009; Tokarska-Bakir, 2008). The resulting “victim nationalism” (Klaus, 2020: 86) further promoted by the Catholic Church, has reinforced the sense of legitimacy felt by most of the population in protecting their country from potential foreign invasions. These are presented by the Polish State as the cause of the end of peaceful coexistence between different populations, and they justify long-lasting discrimination. Thus, anti-Semitic policies dating from Communism have been extended and ignored, and according to some authors, the policies introduced in the 1990s to promote multiculturalism have been limited to encouraging minority folklore, while disregarding certain populations to the advantage of the dominant Catholic group (Pasieka, 2014). Marginalization processes within the country can be explained in light of a history of double domination: Russian colonization coming from the east and Western European hegemony on its western flank (Piekut et al., 2014). When Poland joined the EU in 2004, its eastern borders not only became the EU’s external border, which meant hightened control using more technology, but it also led to the adoption of the European migration policy. Despite its demand for workers—particularly in agriculture—Poland was required to “close” its borders, impose visas on many third-country nationals and acquire monitoring equipment that had previously been unnecessary, as Poland had not been affected by a strong immigration until then (Bioteau and Michalon, 2008). During the Communist period and until the liberalization of the passport law in 1990, the government had instead tightly controlled the movement of people wishing to leave the country (Kicinger et al., 2007b). As Klaus (2020) explains, these mobility management reforms were not, at the time, at the center of political debate, and were handled from a technical perspective by a few senior civil servants. It was only in 2015, following what was presented in Europe as a “migratory crisis,” that the far-right Law and Justice party brought the issue to the forefront, playing on the fear of a Muslim invasion for electoral purposes, despite the low number of refugees registered in Poland.
6Since then, the subject has been at the heart of Polish politics and seems emblematic of the radical position of the Visegrád4 group of countries. It has also been a growing concern in European countries in general, who are not much more open. The Polish wall built in 2022 is just the latest section of the 2,000 kilometers of border fencing around Europe.5 In October 2021, twelve countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Slovakia) signed a letter to the EU requesting funding for the construction of walls on their borders. The Commission’s refusal remains symbolic, because while it has not financed walls, it has helped countries to acquire much more sophisticated technical equipment.
- 6 This article written in 2022 does not take into account subsequent electoral developments.
- 7 The EU was concerned by this political gesture and, in response, was declared in March 2021 an “LGB (...)
- 8 Iwaniuk Jakub (2022) En Pologne, le parti national conservateur au pouvoir prend en main l'éducatio (...)
7While Polish policy follows European trends, it is also the result of a growing right-wing shift in its population6 and leaders since 2015, associated with an increasingly divided population between a pro-government, Catholic and reactionary tendency—which has all but abolished the right to abortion, created “LGBT ideology-free zones”7 and supported Poland’s withdrawal from the European treaty on violence against women—and a broad left wing that is becoming more and more active and is increasingly being criminalized. Against this backdrop, which the newspaper Le Monde has described as a “permanent conservative revolution”,8 the issue of migration took on new significance in the summer of 2021, with the arrival of several tens of thousands of migrants on the eastern front, followed in 2022 by several million Ukrainians.
- 9 Gupa Granica (2021) Humanitarian Crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, [online]. URL: https://www (...)
8Starting in June 2021, on the border between Poland and Belarus, large numbers of people, up to 3,000 per month according to estimates, started arriving without proper travel documents, while only a few hundred had attempted to cross illegally each year until then.9
- 10 The individuals we met in the field also told us about people who had arrived through this region f (...)
9These people arriving suddenly had been encouraged to use travel agencies with ties to the Belarusian government, offering comprehensive travel packages that even included visas and plane tickets, departing from many cities and arriving near the Polish and Lithuanian borders via Minsk. Initially, the candidates for travel originated from the Middle East (Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, or India), but the composition of the group later changed to include people from African countries (Cameroon, Morocco, Sudan, Ghana, Gambia, Togo, Senegal, Tunisia, Mali, Eritrea, and Congo, etc.).10 According to official estimates, between 10,000 and 20,000 people travelled to Minsk in 2021 on their way to Western European countries.
10Even though migration control had long been negotiated between the EU and third countries (El Miri et al., 2023), this was a new case in the instrumentalization of the migration issue. The Belarusian head of State built a migration route from nothing to apply pressure on his neighbors. Following the controversial re-election of Viktor Lukashenko in August 2020, Belarus was applying pressure on the EU to lift the sanctions imposed on its leaders.11 The instrumentalization of the migration issue, which often occurs in tractations with northern Mediterranean countries (Rodier and Morice, 2010), prompted a reaction from the European Council, which publicly condemned all attempts by third countries to use migrants for political ends. This was the situation at the start of the “hybrid war”, which was probably less a “revenge” against the EU, as many media outlets described it at the time, than an operation designed to change the balance of power that had been unfavorable to the Belarusian president until then.
- 12 Statement by Charles Michel on November 17, 2021: “It's hybrid warfare, because it combines the vio (...)
11Faced with the “hybrid warfare” described by Charles Michel, former President of the European Council,12 the European Council was concerned about the situation, and announced additional assistance from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), and Europol and their agents, experts and technical equipment. The EU’s first reaction was to support its member States’ in refusing to welcome these people seeking protection. It did not seek to respond to a humanitarian emergency, but to reinforce the protection of its borders in response to Belarusian provocation.
12For Poland, this was an opportunity to bolster its position among its European partners. While in the last few years, it had been criticized and sidelined by the Commission because of its populist policies, the migration issue improved its reputation in part: the tough repression implemented by the government made it look like a model in fighting against migration and protecting other States from this “threat”.
13The “hybrid warfare” rhetoric found its origin in Usnarz Górny, a small hamlet in Podlaskie. In August 2021, a group of thirty-two people from Afghanistan (nine men, twenty-one women and two children) were detained in a no-man’s-land between Poland and Belarus, denied entry by Polish border guards and forbidden to return to Minsk by Belarusian border guards. The images of this event circulated around the world and led to wide media coverage of the phenomenon, but also to a wave of solidarity and to debate on the subject among Polish authorities.
- 13 This is the term used by our contacts in the field, when speaking with them in English.
14The Fundacji Ocalenie association and a few activists13 tried to bring assistance to the group, which had been cut off from the outside world for eleven days. Despite instructions from Polish border guards forbidding anyone from approaching the exiles, the activists managed to offer them some money and means of communication, while discreetly trying to hand them asylum application forms. After an initial setback, the activists who included lawyers and members of the opposition in parliament, spoke with the exiles by megaphone and went on to share the story with the press, denouncing the authorities’ failure to respect the right of asylum, which gave the event national coverage.
15The situation, presented by the government as a diplomatic dispute over the exact location of the border, lasted two months, until members of the detained group committed multiple acts of rebellion and were, according to our informants, “abducted by Polish border guards and expelled to Belarus a little further south”.14 Pushbacks such as these are illegal under European law insofar as they do not allow people to apply for asylum, but they have become commonplace on the external border of the EU and were legalized in Poland by a law passed on October 14, 2021, without any objection from the European Commission.15
16On September 2, 2021, the President declared a state of emergency over a three-kilometer-wide strip along the entire border with Belarus to have the freedom to crack down on border crossings that were becoming more frequent and avoid the presence of activists or mere witnesses. By refusing international aid and restricting access within this “red zone” to local residents and to the 20,000 or so members of the police and army deployed in the area, the Polish State had free hands to operate in the shadows, out of the public eye.
- 16 See the film Green Border by Agnieszka Holland (2024).
17Since then, thousands of people have been pushed into Polish territory by Belarusian forces, with threats and violence if they attempt to return, while at the same time being hunted down and turned back just as illegally by the Polish authorities.16
- 17 For further information on the subject, read: Pietrusińska (2022).
18The activists who came to the aid of exiles during the winter of 2021-2022 by secretly entering the red zone or waiting for them at its edge, found them exhausted, suffering from hypothermia, sick and wounded, etc. Because this route is considered easier than crossing the Mediterranean Sea, it is used by families with children, vulnerable people, pregnant women and the elderly, who end up wandering for sometimes more than several weeks in swampy forests, frozen in the winter, with temperatures that sometimes drop down to -15°C (see Photograph 1). Doctors who have treated migrants in the region’s hospitals report a high number of critical conditions and note the reappearance of the “trench foot” syndrome, where feet swell because of the damp conditions and freeze, symptoms not seen since the Second World War. They also express how troubled they are by the obligation to report to the border guards all foreigners admitted in their hospital, who are then deported across the border, in the middle of the forest, at night, to avoid being immediately spotted by the Belarusian army.17
Photograph 1: Swamps in the Białowieża forest
Credit: S. Potot, January 2022, Białowieża.
19Despite government propaganda (see Photograph 2) and bans on any assistance to migration, the publicity surrounding the events in Usnarz Górny triggered an unprecedented outpouring of solidarity across the country. From all regions of Poland, people came to bring their assistance to the migrants, while others, further away, contributed to online funding campaigns, and sent food, clothing, and duvets.
Photograph 2: “Murem za polskim mundurem” campaign (Full support for the Polish uniform)
Caption: Churches that support the conservative government display banners endorsing the military forces on the Belarusian border.
Credit: S. Potot, January 2022, Białowieża.
- 18 Interview 1.8 of January 6, 2022, conducted in one of the huts (“base camps”) in Hajnówka housing t (...)
20Solidarity on site was mainly coordinated by Grupa Granica (Border Group), whose members included social and/or humanitarian workers specialized in aiding migrants, but also students, lawyers, academics, artists, doctors and others. Most of them were young, female, from urban areas, with a higher level of education, who had become activists in recent years in opposition to government policy. Some of those we met had become activists by defending the LGBT cause and later had shifted their focus to the defense of migrants or were young people who became involved in politics to fight for abortion rights and found in the border situation a way of extending their struggle to human rights. Other activists in the region had initially campaigned for the environmental protection of the primary forest that forms the border, and which the government wanted to develop for commercial purposes. As the conservative authorities become more radicalized, a coalition of various movements united around the theme of migration. Together, they provided humanitarian, legal and medical assistance, and defended human rights. They sometimes claimed the following motto: “Aid is legal, violence is a crime!”18.
- 19 This second approach suspends deportation, while submission of an asylum application sometimes seem (...)
21The network set up a telephone hotline and provided exiles with both material and legal assistance. Support included appointing Polish persons to sponsor asylum applications or appealing to the “provisional measures” of the European Court of Human Rights on claims of a potential violation of the 1951 Convention.19 This aid was essential for anyone seeking protection. Its members were often engaged in a race against time with law enforcement, as legal action can only be brought if the documents have been signed before the soldiers or border guards intervene.
22Alongside these activists, some of the people living in the border area also became involved to address the situation that had been imposed on them: the arrival within their living environment of people in great distress. Similarly to what occurred on other borders where “migration crises” were created, local residents with no activist experience or strong political opinions became unwilling participants in the borderization process (Bassi, 2015; Giliberti, 2018; Lendaro, 2018). When migrants knocked on their door, some called the authorities without speaking to them, as recommended by the leaflets distributed by the army, while others engaged in clandestine forms of solidarity, providing shelter, care and even driving people a few kilometers from their home to a doctor or to activists.
23All of them told us that they had to deal each day with the criminalization of their activities and the fear of being reported by more zealous compatriots for aiding illegal immigration. In this heavily militarized region, they confirmed that police and soldiers at roadside checkpoints frequently controlled for the presence of illegal foreigners in cars. Since they were known by the police and army operating in the region, they were also abusively checked and fined for all manner of minor offences (the condition of their car’s tires, seatbelts, etc.). The fear was very real of being identified as opponents of the Polish regime or even as enemies of the State. The very harsh repression of pro-LGBT demonstrations had shown them how firmly the Polish authorities could treat their detractors.
24Other people engaged in “borderwork” (Rumford, 2008) brought an added pressure on those showing solidarity. Groups described by our interviewees as para-military forces patrolled mainly at night in unmarked off-road vehicles using surprise and sometimes aggressive tactics. According to some witnesses, these unidentified units were specialized army divisions that had been created recently to carry out the State’s dirty work. Their presence in the field illustrates the concept of “hybrid warfare” in which unconventional participants operate outside the rules.
25By the time of our second trip to the region in July 2022, the wall begun in January had been completed, and the ban on entering the “red zone” had been lifted in June. A five-meter-high metal fence topped with barbed wire now ran along the border between the fields and the forest. It was guarded from watchtowers and could not be approached within 200 meters (see Photograph 3). The wall is currently the longest in Europe. It is 180 kilometers long and is interspersed with rivers which form a natural limit in some parts. It has allowed Polish authorities to reduce the size of police forces deployed but has not prevented crossings which continued in the summer of 2022 across rivers and under and over the wall.
Photo 3: Portion of wall next to the village of Jurowlany
Credit: G. Breda, July 2022, Jurowlany.
- 20 Interview 2.8, July 11, 2022, Białystok.
26While some underground solidarity activists were still present in the field, their number was not as high as it was at the beginning of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. As this interviewee told us: “In autumn people were queuing to help, now they are not enough”.20 Some of them had gone further south to offer their help in much safer conditions. On the Ukrainian border, their work was legal, supervised, often paid and socially valued.
27Between February 24 and July 2022, over 5 million people crossed from Ukraine to Poland, according to the Polish government. Poland, supported by the EU, welcomed these exiles with open arms and, unlike in the previous case, allowed international organizations and NGOs to provide humanitarian aid at the border.
28In Medyka, at a pedestrian border crossing on the road between Lviv and Krakow, a “crisis caravan”, as one local activist called it, had been organized. Reception centers had been installed to feed Ukrainian refugees and register their applications for temporary protection.
29Right after the border crossing, welcome banners and stands distributing food and first aid kits had been set up along the road.
30Toilets, tables and chairs and a children’s play area were also provided between tents for Unicef, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and many other humanitarian organizations (see Photograph 4). The telephone numbers of the embassies of different countries were posted along the road to help migrants relocate to other countries.
Photograph 4: The humanitarian corridor at the Medyka border crossing
Credit: G. Breda, July 13, 2022, Medyka.
31Non-profits and large private groups from different parts of the world offered services for people in exile as diverse as telephone cards or free calls to Ukraine, raincoats or pet care.
32After crossing this corridor with all kinds of stands, the people arriving—mainly women and children—were led to different organizations and people offering housing solutions. While the local authorities were mainly in charge of organizing the transfer and transportation of these people to other destinations, many others also contributed, including associations, professional accommodation providers and private individuals who had come from all over Europe to offer a room or a place on a sofa. The local authorities provided buses to drive people to collective housing—often warehouses—in villages near the border, but strangers were also offering these services to thousands of people without any supervision from the authorities.
33Faced with this profusion of initiatives, humanitarian professionals were concerned about the risk of kidnapping and sexual exploitation of women arriving in large numbers, especially vulnerable ones. Attempts were made to regulate these practices, such as a Facebook group to check identities. This unprecedented outpouring of solidarity and the spontaneity shown by the Poles, and more widely by European citizens who opened their homes, was widely covered in the media.
34From February onwards, the problem on this border was not to find the means to deal with the crisis, but rather to channel and organize the many people engaged and their multiple offers.
35The Polish government not only managed flows on the border, but also adapted its laws to receive the exiles in the best possible conditions. As early as March, the authorities issued decrees to regulate the presence of Ukrainian refugees on its territory, granting them an amount of 200 zlotys on arrival, registering them for social and medical benefits and for school, offering free transportation services and the possibility of financial support to private housing providers.
- 21 Interview 2.9, July 12, 2022, Lublin.
36The town of Lublin, which saw its population grow from 20,000 to 44,000 in just a few months, is an example of the collaboration that grew between the municipality and local associations (Podgórska et al., 2024). Together, they created a collective, “Lubelski Spoleczny Komitet Pomocy Ukrainie” (Lubelski Social Committee for Ukraine), with the aim of providing comprehensive, coordinated assistance to this specific target group. Up to 4,000 volunteers were part of the committee at the height of the crisis that had been stabilized by the time we visited. Training was provided to volunteers pouring in from all over Poland by major international humanitarian organizations with the aim of standardizing practices. “Poland became one big NGO”,21 observed with irony an employee of Homo Faber, a national association that had been active for many years with foreigner integration.
37Between the start of the crisis and July 2022, the collective provided accommodation for around 900 people in shelters, plus a further 1,000 in private apartments. Other people were housed by individuals. The committee also tried to provide specific services for people fleeing war: health, psychological and legal care, and protection for highly vulnerable people. While there was no shortage of volunteers, the main problem was to find workers who spoke Ukrainian.
38Volunteers were also paid by the collective, and if they refused to be reimbursed for their participation in solidarity activities, they were compensated for their expenses by a system of vouchers to be used in supermarkets. Their work was limited to four consecutive hours, and they could receive free psychological support. According to the volunteers working with this organization, their activities never suffered from a shortage of funding, which was generously provided by both public institutions and private doners.
39As previously mentioned, the largest population influx occurred between March and May 2022, and the situation when we visited in July was clearly calmer than before. In fact, both in Lublin and at the Medyka outpost, people participating in humanitarian services seemed to outnumber Ukrainians crossing through.
- 22 Interview 2.7, July 10, 2022, Kruszyniany.
40Although the most frequent reaction to these arrivals was an outpouring of solidarity, expressions of rejection were also noticeable. As is often the case, the assistance provided to foreigners was opposed to the social neglect of some nationals. In Lublin, protests could be heard among the local population about refugees’ free access to municipal services, and rumors were circulating: “I heard that a Ukrainian girl wanted to get a manicure for free”,22 a restaurant manager told us. Polish nationalist feelings seemed to have been rekindled by the presence of people speaking Russian in the streets and of welcome messages posted in Cyrillic. For example, in one of the photos diplayed in Bialystok showing the organization of border assistance, the Ukrainian symbol sewn onto a child’s hat had been crossed out (see Photograph 5).
Photograph 5: Awareness campaign to welcome Ukrainians to Białystok
Credit: G. Breda, July 8, 2022, Białystok.
41In response to these reactions coming from a minority, the local police distributed flyers explaining how refugees could contact the police in case of need. The authorities’ attitude to these hostile displays contrasted sharply with the situation further north.
42In conversations with some of the aid workers who had previous experience on the Belarusian border, they smiled bitterly as they gave one example after another of the contrast between the two borders. While they were pleased to see the international mobilization around the Ukrainian situation, they were sad to notice the partiality of this generosity. It was shocking for the activists who had worked in both situations:
- 23 Interview 2.4, July 8, 2022, Warsaw.
“On the Ukrainian borders they had it all: clothes, food, toys, veterinarians checking the pets, border guards with big smiles taking children and families to reception centers: the festival of welcoming. On the other, refugee children were pushed back... It was really schizophrenic.”23
43One of them, hired by IOM in Medyka after secretly bringing assistance to migrants on the edge of the red zone for several months, said that he felt relieved to be working in a much less stressful environment while remaining true to his altruistic values. He was nevertheless aware of the unequal treatment of people who were all in need, and he was trying to be more consistent by thinking about the future:
- 24 Interview 2.11, July 13, 2022, Medyka.
“Here I am learning about humanitarian work, which I can then use to serve all foreigners.”24
44It is important to note, however, that even on the Ukrainian border, solidarity was not equally granted to all people fleeing the war. From the start of the conflict, those of non-Ukrainian nationality, marked with a light blue dot by the border guards, were much more often blocked on the Ukrainian side, and systematically sent back to the end of the line. The distinction between racialized and non-racialized people, reported by many associations, was obvious to the volunteers working there. A representative of Fundacji Ocalenie said:
- 25 Interview 2.11, July 13, 2022, Medyka.
“In Medyka there were thousands of black students and refugees standing outside in the snow for five days with no food. Nobody is helping them, so we went with a bus, and we managed to help some of them. Why is that? Why do they act like this? This government is racist! One of the ministers said that Ukrainian women and children had to be cleared at the border first. Black people had to go at the end of the queue, waiting for days, and got the same treatment from Ukrainians border guards.”25
45The sorting process at the country’s entrance was openly discriminatory: only those with Ukrainian citizenship were welcomed with open arms; the others, mainly African and Asian students, refugees or immigrants, who had been living in Ukraine for a long time and who were equally afraid of Russian violence, were kept out of Poland as much as possible. Although the law grants temporary protection to any permanent resident, asylum seeker or political refugee, it was systematically granted only to Ukrainian citizens.
46While most of them eventually managed to enter Poland and possibly moved on to other European countries, they had to cross many hurdles to be accepted.
47Investigation of the Polish situation and its contrasts highlights the geopolitical role played by international migration today. Whether the issue of migration is instrumentalized and used as a hybrid weapon in a context of conflict, as the Belarusian president chose to do; or, on the contrary, when welcoming nationals of an allied country with open arms, the management of people in transit has become a tool that serves power relations between States. In this context, it is not surprising that those who oppose institutional practices are seen as enemies of the State, and this forces them to act as dissidents and remain in the shadows.
48The Polish case also reveals the racist logic behind European migration policies. Beyond the geostrategic role Ukrainian migrants are forced to play, they do not seem to be perceived as a threat by European populations, even if they are more than 5 million. This authorizes the different governments to welcome them in large numbers, while people from Africa or Asia with post-colonial ties to the West are massively rejected by the public opinion that has long been convinced of this necessity.
49Observations made on the borders of Poland and Europe show the political instrumentalization of migration issues at play on the international stage and the racism within European countries and their effects both on the experience of people displaced to the EU and on those who bring assistance to them.
