New Tales from the Borderlands: battles over Exiles Reception and Rejection in Poland

In 2015, the conservative Law and Justice party came to power by playing on the fear of migration. The government rejected any idea of relocation or European solidarity in this area. This position was reaffirmed in 2021, when thousands of asylum seekers attempting to cross the Polish-Belarusian border were turned back and the border was militarised. In the absence of a coherent migration policy, NGOs have mobilized to defend the migrants’ rights. With the militarisation of the border 2021-2023, tensions have increased between the associations that help asylum seekers and the PiS government, which has accused them of endangering the country's security. The arrival of more than a million Ukrainian refugees following the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022 has made Poland a paradoxical host. At a time when speeches expressing a "denial of immigration" (Héran, 2023) are spreading in various countries, this paper proposes to examine the social mobilisation in the context of the polarization of migration issues by the ultra-conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland (2015-2023). While the critical stance of this government towards the European project for the relocation of asylum seekers is well known, there are several aspects that need to be examined in relation to the theme of this session. Firstly, the radicalisation of the government’s conservative rhetoric will be analysed. How does the anti-migrant electoral mobilisation fit in with the hostile rhetoric against minorities, the harassment of NGOs helping asylum seekers and the denunciation of a conspiracy attributed to 'European bureaucracy'? How does the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border, then the war in Ukraine, affect the government's narrative of border securitisation? To what extent do references to a "migration crisis" - which does not necessarily reflect a statistically significant influx (Reddy & Thiollet, 2023) - find an echo in public statements? Second, the paper focuses on the social mobilisation of NGOs and public figures to defend the rights of asylum seekers during the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border. It analyses the impact of the war in Ukraine on this mobilization. While many NGOs have been involved in the broad mobilisation to help refugees from Ukraine (which was supported by the government), some of them continued to oppose the government on the rights of asylum seekers from other regions. This paper seeks to better understand the dilemmas faced by the associations involved in the reception of exiles in the face of the criminalisation of border crossings. Although the liberal majority that came to power at the end of 2023 has announced its intention to put an end to the backlash at the border, it is not certain that it will propose a radically new reception policy. In the current geopolitical context border securitisation might become a common denominator for national and EU authorities. This paper is based on ongoing research into the conditions under which refugees from Ukraine are being received in Poland and on an analysis of the use of migration issues by various Polish newspapers.