The article attempts to analyse the challenges facing Polish state migration policy regarding of persons trying to obtain refugee status. We use the metaphor „refugee field,” and focus both on the evolution of the refugee policy and the problems it may face in the near future. We discuss successively: changes in refugee movements the development and differentiation of relevant laws, the transformation of administrative structures dealing with these issues, as well as attitudes to the refugee theme in Polish public opinion. We attempt to demonstrate that the evolution of administrative and legal provisions for the protection of refugees (or „refugee field”) during the last two decades reveals tensions between the internationalization and adoption (transposition) of European solutions and the need to adapt them to Poland’s administrative conditions and geopolitical situation. The challenges faced by institutions dealing with these issues – and particularly state institutions (Office for Foreigners) – are in the short term related to legal and institutional changes (especially the new Aliens Act), and in the long run to the changing global trends in refugee movements, and Poland’s increasing role as an immigration country. The very specific problems arising in „the refugee field” (and in the migration policy) are difficult to predict and they will always show tensions between legal and humanitarian procedures, owing to the specifi c, individual life situations of refugee candidates.
The article focuses on the analysis of the evolution of work on Polish migration policy in the period 2016–2022. In it, we draw attention to the importance of not defining clear goals of the state’s migration policy and setting the rules for their implementation. This concerned the failure to work out a compromise between the goals related to the interests of the economy and the demographic needs of the society and the narrowly understood priorities of maintaining state security. This gave rise to both internal competition between individual institutions within the central administration, and was conducive to high political sensitivity of work on developing the program of this policy. Its effect was that the state’s migration policy took on the character of a public policy without politics, i.e. consistent actions in various fields of migration (such as the labor market, Polish diaspora policy, border protection and refugee policy) without broader political and official discussion about its long-term goals.
PL
Artykuł skupia się na analizie ewolucji prac nad polską polityką migracyjną w okresie 2016–2022. Zwracamy w nim uwagę na znaczenie braku określenia jednoznacznych celów polityki migracyjnej państwa oraz wyznaczenia zasad ich realizacji. Dotyczyło to braku wypracowania kompromisu między celami związanymi z interesami gospodarki i potrzebami demograficznymi społeczeństwa a wąsko rozumianymi priorytetami zachowania bezpieczeństwa państwa. Rodziło to zarówno wewnętrzną konkurencję między poszczególnymi instytucjami w ramach administracji centralnej, jak i sprzyjało wysokiej wrażliwości politycznej prac nad wypracowaniem programu tej polityki. Jej efektem było to, że polityka migracyjna państwa przybrała charakter polityki publicznej „bez polityki” (ang. policy without politics), tj. prowadzenia konsekwentnych działań na różnych polach migracji (takich jak rynek pracy, polityka polonijna, ochrona granic i polityka uchodźcza) bez szerszej politycznej i oficjalnej dyskusji o jej celach w dłuższej perspektywie czasowej.
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