How to deal with migrants and the State’s backlash – Polish cities’ experience

ABSTRACT

Over the last decades, Poland has witnessed a relatively dynamic increase in the number of immigrants. At the same time, current Polish central authorities, politicians of the ruling party and the majority of the population perceive migrants mostly as a threat and a challenge. Municipal authorities lack complex support from central authorities. However, the situation is slowly changing. Some Polish cities are adopting migration policies or including migration issues in the local development strategies. Considering this, the article aims to examine migrants’ integration policies in selected Polish cites considered leaders in this field: Lublin, Gdańsk, Kraków and Wrocław. The main research question is: how do Polish cities deal with the backlash from the national government and absence of clear legal regulations on their role and competences in the area of migrant integration? The research method is that of a legal-institutional analysis and case study. The former is used to interpret the legal acts and other documents. Its application is justified by the fact that this paper examines strategic documents adopted at the level of urban governments regarding the integration of migrants. Case study methods made it possible to examine the migrants’ integration policy in four Polish cities.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration policy
• migrants’ integration
• Polish cities
• State’s backlash

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Agnieszka Szpak http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7601-1230

Notes

1 Such approaches include: 1. ‘security frame’ policies which individual municipalities adopt to discourage migrants with irregular status from settling in this particular area, for example by multiplying obstacles in registration procedures and introducing status checking on public transportation or even in private houses. 2. ‘human rights’ or ‘humanitarian frame’ policies which are based on the notion that irregular-status migrants or people who were refused asylum are particularly vulnerable and – due to their irregularity – more threatened with marginalization. Cities which adopt this stance demonstrate an open approach towards their ‘irregular population’ and seek ways to provide these inhabitants with access to basic services and/or ways to obtain legal status. A version of this stance is seen in policies that are based on the notion of deservingness: they contain measures to include certain groups of (irregular) migrants – those perceived as more deserving of rights and services than others (such as children, irregular workers that cater to the local economy needs etc.). For more details see: (Delvino, 2017a, pp. 23–24).

2 These cities are: Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Katowice, Kraków, Lublin, Łódź, Poznań, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Warszawa, Wrocław.

3 The ‘Strategy for Development of Warsaw until 2020’ created by the Municipal Office of the capital does not prioritize multiculturalism and migrant integration issues. No special documents concerning Warsaw’s migration policy have been introduced so far, yet strategic documents on particular domains of activity of the Warsaw Municipal Office contain elements of such policy. One of them is the initiative named ‘Study in Warsaw’, a part of the ‘Education Development Program’ (‘Program rozwoju edukacji’); another is the Social Dialogue Commission for Foreigners that has been operating for several years at the Social Communication Centre. Another initiative of Warsaw’s authorities is an anti-discrimination clause concerning rental agreements – a relevant document has been signed by the Municipal Office and renters offering their services in the city area (Miasta Otwarte – Open Cities, 2016, pp. 46–47).