ABSTRACT
This book focuses on the complex situation of forced migrants in Poland, one of the Central and Eastern European Member States of the European Union since 2004 and a Schengen zone member since 2007. This specific case study is particularly important given that the country’s eastern border serves as the EU external frontier and hence is prone to the inflow of forced and irregular migrants from third countries, although since the early 2000s until 2021 both categories of migrants were not a real challenge for the Polish authorities. For the purposes of this publication, we focus on forced migrants, by which we mean people seeking asylum, wishing to submit, or having already submitted an application for international protection in Poland (regardless of the outcome of the asylum procedure), as well as those already granted international protection. The latter are considered beneficiaries of international protection and include people granted refugee status or subsidiary protection. In this introduction to the book, we also discuss the main theoretical and methodological framework of our work and present the book’s structure.
