**7. Discussion and Conclusions**

Most public policies introduced during a pandemic time are characterised by their uncertainty (Weible et al. 2020, p. 3), which stems from the unpredictability of what might happen and how the virus, as well as its mutations, will spread. The same uncertainty impacts on migration policies and then affects the lives of migrants. The second important effect of the pandemic is the deepening of existing inequalities (Weible et al. 2020, p. 5). Yet again, migrants pay the highest price for this state of affairs, especially those who are most vulnerable and in need of the greatest support, i.e., refugees. Meanwhile, on the EU level, not much is being enacted, be it on the level of individual states or in the EU as a whole (Dadusc and Mudu 2020), and the only evolution is visible in the language used with reference to migrants and refugees alike, which on a declarative level at least can be described as 'human and humane' (Panebianco 2021). This criticism applies to Poland as well, a country where the constitution guarantees the highest level of protection to refugees and where this very group of migrants has been overlooked the most during the pandemic, and experienced the greatest inconvenience as a result of the restrictions on movement (Princ 2020, p. 16).

On the whole, the pandemic has seen the return of governments shifting their attention to borders and societies closing in their national bubbles. Migration to many

countries has been limited and migrants have often been accused of bringing along diseases (Ambrosini 2021, p. 389). In Poland, these processes have taken place to some extent only, emphasising the double standards that the governmen<sup>t</sup> applies to different categories of migrants. Therefore, on the one hand, the borders have remained open throughout to migrant workers in response to economic demands and pressure from business owners which overrode the government's xenophobia. On the other hand, the borders have been almost entirely closed to refugees, who are perceived as undesirable and likely to generate additional costs (Barker 2018).

The pandemic has also exacerbated the division of migrants according to their ethnicity or religion. For many years now, various administrations in Poland have spoken about opening up, mainly to arrivals from culturally close societies, most notably citizens of neighbouring countries. Not only was this sentiment reflected in subsequent documents on migration policy but also while drafting custom-made regulations to cater to Ukrainians. The same happened during the pandemic, except this time the borders opened to a different single group of refugees—Belarusians. In a move without precedent (even when compared with the admission of Ukrainians after Russia's aggression against Ukraine in 2014), the governmen<sup>t</sup> prepared regulations and protocols that opened the borders wide, offered significant help in crossing them as well as upon arrival. Belarusians were perceived not solely as people fleeing persecution but as individuals with agency, which was reflected in the launching of the 'Poland. Business Harbour' programme for entrepreneurs from Belarus (mainly from the IT sector) who wish to relocate to Poland.

Meanwhile, people from geographically, ethnically, and religiously distant countries (mainly Muslims), found themselves in an altogether different situation. Their arrival in Poland—whether as refugees or migrant workers—is rarely welcome and they themselves face many obstacles when trying to enter. To all intents and purposes, this level of government xenophobia bears all the marks of a phenomenon known as 'departheid' (Kalir 2019), which in Poland, due to the near absence of people from different ethnical or religious backgrounds, focuses on measures preventing their entry. Nonetheless, the main purpose of these practices is essentially the same—

to protect the territory of White people, or what we can call 'White spaces,' from any 'invasion' by racialized Others. ( ... ) [It's] an act of self-defense, protecting so-called Western civilization and Judeo-Christian values that are allegedly under attack from illegalized migrants. (Kalir 2019, pp. 28, 32)

Those 'values' are at the absolute forefront of the Polish government's policy at the moment. This fact became even more obvious in August 2021, when many immigrants found themselves stranded in the border zone, and the governmen<sup>t</sup> contributed to the deaths of several people in the Polish forests by refusing to accept asylum claims from them while continuing to push them back to Belarus irrespective of their health condition.

**Funding:** The research presented in this article is part of the project 'Ensuring the safety and public order as a justification of criminalisation of migration' financed by the National Science Centre, Poland under the gran<sup>t</sup> number 2017/25/B/HS5/02961.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethical Committee of the Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences (decision 3/2018 of 29.03.2018).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** Data available on request.

**Acknowledgments:** The author would like to thank Monika Szulecka for her cooperation in designing this research and for conducting several interviews within it.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
