ABSTRACT
The ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015 was a watershed moment in Polish migration policy. It became one of the prominent issues of the 2015 election campaign and resulted in the win of the Law and Justice Party, one of the far-right political parties which withdrew Poland from the EU refugee relocation scheme. Although asylum law has not changed much in Poland, some of the regulations were toughened for ‘security reasons.’ As a result, Polish borders became practically closed to asylum seekers. Simultaneously, a parallel reality was created for economic immigrants from Ukraine. Since 2016 more than one million Ukrainians have worked in Poland each year. They became one of the critical pillars of Polish economy. Polish labor migration legislation remains very open (especially comparing to other EU countries). This chapter presents the duality in the approach to migration and immigrants of the Polish government. It describes the main changes in migration legislation and their official justification.
