Growing Migration in an Emigrant State: an Analysis of Migration Policy, Practice, and Ukrainian Immigration in Poland

Poland has long been a country of net emigration, though the country has received backlash in recent years for its xenophobic treatment towards asylum seekers from non-European countries, versus its treatment of Ukrainian asylum seekers. To explore this phenomenon, this research first asks, does Poland have a preferential migration policy? I first look at the restrictiveness and evolution of Poland's migration policy from 2003-2019. I find that the state's migration policies which specifically target EU member and Eastern European states are on average slightly less restrictive than the restrictiveness of the entire population of policies. In the following chapter I ask, how is this policy implemented, and how is it reflected in Poland's migrant workforce? To explore how these policies are implemented, I look at work permit data from 2010-2020, analyzing the differences in the number of work permits granted to each country of origin over time. I find that migrants from Eastern European and Central Asian states receive a disproportionately high number of work permits compared to other regions, and that within the region, Ukrainians receive the highest number of permits each year. Finally, to better understand this inequality, my fourth chapter asks, why Ukraine specifically? In this analysis, I hypothesize that proximity and cultural similarities, Poland's security interests, and both states' economic interests drive this special migration relationship. I find mixed support for this hypothesis, but ultimately find that these factors do play important roles in maintaining the relationship between Poland and Ukraine.