Rights groups in Warsaw woke up on 14 April to the familiar sound of anxious phone calls from detention centres in eastern Poland. Under an ordinance that has now been in force for more than a year, anyone who has crossed from Belarus without authorisation is barred from lodging an asylum claim at the Polish frontier. The rule, adopted at the height of the 2025 migrant standoff with Minsk, was billed as a 60-day emergency measure but has been renewed repeatedly and is now being applied almost automatically, according to lawyers. The policy is hitting Afghans hardest. Many were evacuated to Belarus by people-smuggling networks after the Taliban takeover and saw the forested Polish–Belarusian border as their only realistic path to safety in the European Union. Because Poland refuses to register their applications, they are classified as ‘illegal entrants’, placed in guarded facilities and handed deportation decisions that could return them to Taliban-controlled Kabul. Human-rights monitors argue that the practice breaches both EU asylum law and the non-refoulement principle of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits sending people back to places where they risk persecution. “Poland is effectively operating a push-back system under the guise of national security,” says Marta Górecka of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. Her organisation has filed three cases with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. For global-mobility managers the stakes are high. Companies that relocated Afghan staff to Poland after the 2021 evacuation—or that employ Afghan contractors through Belarusian subsidiaries—could suddenly find key employees placed in detention or removed from the EU.
![Afghan asylum-seekers in Poland fear deportation as government keeps Belarus border ban in place]()
At this juncture, many employers and individuals seek assistance from third-party visa facilitators such as VisaHQ, whose Poland portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) offers real-time guidance on humanitarian, work and transit options still open within the Schengen area. The service produces up-to-date document checklists, secures consular appointments and helps redirect asylum or visa applications to jurisdictions that continue to register claims—allowing Afghan nationals and their companies to chart alternative legal pathways when the Polish frontier is effectively closed.
Specialists advise auditing any Afghan national’s immigration status and, where necessary, re-filing for humanitarian visas in another Schengen country that still registers border claims. Poland’s Ministry of the Interior insists that the restrictions are temporary and proportionate, citing a sharp fall in irregular crossings since March 2025. But with no expiry date written into the amended law, campaigners fear a de-facto long-term closure of one of the EU’s external asylum channels.
At this juncture, many employers and individuals seek assistance from third-party visa facilitators such as VisaHQ, whose Poland portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) offers real-time guidance on humanitarian, work and transit options still open within the Schengen area. The service produces up-to-date document checklists, secures consular appointments and helps redirect asylum or visa applications to jurisdictions that continue to register claims—allowing Afghan nationals and their companies to chart alternative legal pathways when the Polish frontier is effectively closed.
Specialists advise auditing any Afghan national’s immigration status and, where necessary, re-filing for humanitarian visas in another Schengen country that still registers border claims. Poland’s Ministry of the Interior insists that the restrictions are temporary and proportionate, citing a sharp fall in irregular crossings since March 2025. But with no expiry date written into the amended law, campaigners fear a de-facto long-term closure of one of the EU’s external asylum channels.
