In Poland there is generally no official policy implemented with regard to the nationals of particular countries of origin because every application is examined individually.
In mid- August the group of approximately 1100 Afghans was evacuated from their country and came to Poland. According to the Office for Foreigners, the Office made efforts to prioritize applications of these Afghan nationals as they were considered manifestly well-founded. To the contrary, the Office also tried to prioritize issuing negative decisions towards the applicants from Iraq who irregularly crossed the border from Belarus.[1]
Still, the most significant group of persons seeking protection in 2021 were Belarusian citizens. There were 2257 applicants in 2021, while 1148 persons were granted protection (140 refugee status and 1008 subsidiary protection) and only 3 persons were issued a negative decision.
The Government introduced many policies enabling the Belarussians entering Poland as migrants – such as visa facilitations and facilitations in obtaining residence permit. According to the Office for Foreigners, Belarusians constitute the second-largest group of foreigners in Poland, with around 28,000 of them currently holding residence permits as of 2020.
As of 31 December 2021, according to the Border Guard, no returns are carried out to the following countries: Syria, Eritrea, Venezuela, Afghanistan and Palestine.[2] According to the Border Guard, this list is updated every quarter based on the Eurostat information on international protection and humanitarian protection rate. When the protection rate is higher than 75%, returns are withheld to those countries.[3]
[1] Letter from the Office for Foreigners to HFHR no BSZ.WKSI.0656.3.2022/RW, 26 January 2022.
[2] Information provided by the Border Guard, 4 March 2022. February 2021.
[3] Information provided by the Border Guard to Nomada NGO, 14 September 2020.