Poland’s president called on the government to take action to prevent non-EU immigrants from being sent back into the country from Germany.
“It is a pity the Polish government is not reacting to the pushing of migrants from Germany into Poland,” said Andrzej Duda.
During a briefing in Seville, Duda was asked how he assessed the actions of the Polish government and border authorities on the Polish-German border.
“We cannot allow the law to be broken, for migrants to be brutally pushed into our country. Germany has created a problem with migrants and must deal with this problem on its own. We will not solve this problem for them,” he said.
Germany introduced controls in October 2023 to stop illegal migration.
On Sunday, Poland’s Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said on X that "the Border Guard is performing its statutory tasks of protecting the state border and combating illegal migration" and appealed for “trust in the Border Guard.”
Self-declared “citizen patrols” – some hundreds strong – have gathered on the Polish side of the border with Germany to oppose returns of migrants whom the German authorities have found to have entered illegally from Poland.
On Saturday, a group of 200 residents of Szczecin, a city near the German border, blocked a road.
“We walk to the border post and back. Just so that the German police don’t bring us migrants,” one participant told Radio Szczecin.
Groups of soccer fans have also organized similar “citizen patrols” on the border, with banners saying “Stop illegal immigration.”
The protests are supported by Poland’s two main opposition parties – the far-right Confederation party and conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.
“Poland’s western border is ceasing to exist!” wrote Mariusz Blaszczak, a former defense minister. “Illegal migrants are regularly being transferred to us from Germany, and (Polish Prime Minister Donald) Tusk’s government is pretending that nothing is happening.”
“Scenes from border towns are beginning to resemble those from Berlin, Paris or Stockholm – groups of illegal migrants sleeping on benches, in parks, wandering around,” he added.
“The claim that Germany is transferring migrants to Poland is untrue,” wrote the ministry. “We are mostly dealing with foreigners who were in Poland (most of them legally) and who then attempt to enter Germany but are denied entry due to border controls.”
In a further statement, the ministry also noted that the decision by Germany to reinstate controls on the Polish border happened in 2023, when PiS was in power, and “stemmed from the lack of a responsible and safe migration policy in Poland” before the current government came to office.
Between January 2024 and February 2025, Germany returned to Poland over 11,000 migrants who had unlawfully crossed the Polish-German border, the border authorities reported.
Tusk said in early June that it is “very likely” that Poland will soon introduce “partial controls” on its border with Germany in response to migrant returns, though that has not yet happened.
“In the name of subservience to Berlin, Tusk is surrendering Polish security,” Blaszczak said.
