Terre des Hommes on the suspension of the right to asylum in Poland

Osnabrück/Berlin, March 27, 2025 – Terre des Hommes Germany sharply criticizes the signing of the law temporarily suspending the right to asylum in Poland. “Since 2021, the Lukashenko regime, supported by the Kremlin, has been deliberately issuing visas to refugees and exploiting their desperation to exert pressure on the EU. However, by suspending the right to asylum, the Polish government is not targeting the aggressors, but solely the refugees. In practice, the Polish government's plans will lead to families being separated and unaccompanied children being pushed back,” says Teresa Wilmes, Terre des Hommes ' expert on refugees and migration.

The law stipulates that, for an initial period of 60 days, asylum seekers will be prevented from applying for asylum in Poland. This is intended to legitimize and expand the already existing practice of brutal, illegal pushbacks at the Polish-Belarusian border. “Even though unaccompanied minors are theoretically exempt from abandonment, children and young people are often not recognized as such by the Polish authorities. And children who enter with their families will, in most cases, be pushed back to Belarus without any examination of their asylum application,” Wilmes continued.

The future German government must also urgently reconsider its course on this issue. During the coalition negotiations, the CDU proposed no longer processing asylum applications in Germany from people who are being “instrumentalized as illegal migrants for Putin’s hybrid warfare against Europe.” “That sends exactly the wrong signal: children are being made to suffer through no fault of their own. Systematically weakening human rights cannot be the right response to regimes that disregard human rights,” explained Teresa Wilmes.

The humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border has persisted since 2021. Children, young people, and adults are forced to endure days and weeks in the forest and sometimes experience massive violence at the hands of the Polish authorities during unlawful pushbacks. Terre des Hommes has been working with Polish civil society organizations to ensure the provision of food, dry clothing and medicine to refugee children and young people in the border region.

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