EU states plan to return 6,500 asylum seekers to Poland

The EU states have filed close to 6,500 applications in 2022 to return asylum seekers to Poland, the Polish Border Guard reported on Tuesday.

Under EU regulations anybody seeking to apply for asylum must apply in the first EU country they crossed into. So anybody who has moved from one EU country to another can be deported back to the first state they entered.

In 2021, Poland's border with Belarus came under intense pressure from thousands of migrants trying to get into the EU.

Most of the deportation motions come from Germany, Norway, France, Sweden and Austria, and mainly concern asylum seekers from Iraq, the Border Guard said.

A Border Guard spokesperson said a similar fate would await Middle Eastern refugees currently trying to cross the Polish border from Belarus, if they travelled further into the EU.

The spokesperson said 501 of the 4,500 refugees marked for deportation to Poland from other EU states have already arrived in the country.