**6. 'It's the Economy, Stupid'**

While the borders were closed to refugees, they remained very much open to people coming to work. However, in Poland's case, the caveat did not only concern essential workers, a term which basically covers people doing seasonal work in agriculture. The borders remained open to all migrants who could produce any document entitling them to work in Poland. In addition, further facilitating measures for migrant workers were introduced quite quickly: the validity of their visas, residence permits, and work permits were automatically extended (Princ 2020), so that they would not be required to apply for new ones issued during a pandemic or return to their country of origin to have them replaced.

These provisions, however, resulted not so much from the willingness to make things easier for migrant workers, but rather for those who employ them. They were prompted by the inefficiency of the Polish system of legalisation of work and stay, in which the procedures for obtaining documents can last for several months:

it takes around 6–7 months to have the work permit issued in normal circumstances, let alone during a pandemic. The same goes for changing the temporary residence and work permit when switching employers. The pandemic situation has made the wait even longer, causing more and more foreigners to take up work without a valid permit or to work illegally altogether. *Migration lawyer* (W8)

The governmen<sup>t</sup> was well aware that the delays in completing formalities would only increase with offices working at reduced capacity due to the pandemic, which indeed happened (Cope et al. 2020, pp. 11–13). Hence, the introduction of the new regulations was intended to prevent the illegalisation of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers.

At face value these provisions appear to facilitate the functioning of migrants during the pandemic, and they really worked, at the start. However, these temporary regulations have now been in force for 1.5 years and it is not known when they will cease to apply (they are to be in force until the state of the epidemic emergency is cancelled by the governmen<sup>t</sup> and for another 30 days after that date). Therefore, they create a sense of uncertainty and limbo with regards to what will happen later, when the new rules have been abandoned and new documents will not be issued by relevant offices on time.

The COVID-19 regulations also assumed the continuity of work with one employer, in a bid to eliminate the problem with extending employment. However, in the event of a change of employer (not least due to redundancies caused by the economic slowdown or the closure of certain sectors, such as gastronomy), the migrant is not able to quickly obtain new documents necessary to start work with another employer. However, they need a job to support themselves (because most often they are not eligible to receive social benefits). Hence, they often work illegally or in some sort of semi-legal arrangements (Kubal 2013), as indicated by the migration lawyer quoted above (W8).

Special regulations were introduced for seasonal workers in agriculture—their supposed quarantine at the contracted farm did not consist of complete self-isolation, as they

could normally carry out all field work on the farm, which basically released them from having to quarantine at all. Another problem was that migrant workers were not adequately protected—they stayed in common rooms in larger groups and did not receive appropriate personal protective equipment (the fact that they often disregarded the epidemic threat themselves did not help either).

In a nutshell the requirements stated that those who arrive during the pandemic must be accommodated in separate rooms. This never happened. I know, because I saw it with my own eyes: eight people would arrive to pick strawberries, each one on a different day. According to guidelines, they should each stay in their own room, and this never happened. They would be put together. [...] The face masks were just for show, in case of a spot check, but the workers themselves did not demand them—they felt that the fresh air made a difference. Mind you, when they were being transported [ ... ] it did become problematic, because they were squeezed together in one delivery van. [ ... ] they are squeezed together, there's no ventilation and all the facemasks are at the front, where the driver is, so that he can quickly throw them to people when he sees the police. You know, as in: put the masks on so that they can see everything's legit. A complete farce it was. *Seasonal work expert* (W1)

To summarize, the only ban enforced during this peculiar form of quarantine was the lack of contact with people outside the household, i.e., Poles. In fact, it was the safety of the latter that seemed to be a cause for concern for the authorities (as well as the state of the Polish economy, no doubt), rather than the well-being of migrant workers (cf. also Bejan 2020).

All the above regulations for migrant workers were 'tailored' primarily to Ukrainians and other workers from countries neighbouring Poland. Citizens from more distant (geographically but also ethnically) regions, i.e., people from Asian or African countries, were subject to obvious xenophobia, seeing as their arrival was obstructed in various ways—visas were not issued, those already issued were cancelled and consular posts were closed (cf. also Parmet 2020, p. 241).

The above regulations result from the Polish authorities' perception of migrant workers only in the context of immediate benefits for the economy, whereby disposable labourers come to work for a while when needed, and then leave. Such a setup relies on temporary and rather short-term migration, which is wholly untenable, as figures show different trends in this area. Still, hard facts will clearly not stand in the way of those who are in power and resent the presence of migrants in Poland for longer, let alone permanently.
