How Berlin Plans to Send Thousands of Migrants Across the Polish Border

New German facility near Poland ready to send back up to 70,000 migrants a year. Find out how Chancellor Scholz's plan and Tusk's quiet compliance threaten Poland's border security.

At the end of August 2015, we witnessed one of the most irresponsible, indeed the stupidest, statements ever made by a European politician in the history of the EU. The Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, during a press conference following a visit to a refugee camp in Dresden, uttered her famous: “Wir schaffen das” – later recognized as the fundamental slogan of the German Willkommenskultur concept. A few days later, she reiterated her position by stating that Germany was ready to accept “any refugees from Syria, regardless of the cost.” These expressions, later dubbed by commentators as “Angela Merkel’s Herzlich willkommen,” ignited the then-budding migration crisis in the European Union, a crisis we continue to grapple with today. This authoritarian decision by Germany affected the entire EU – before long, they began forcing countries opposed to mass migration, such as Poland or Hungary, to “show solidarity” and admit culturally foreign migrants. The European Parliament initiated coercive processes, there were lawsuits, accusations of failing to respect the law, and finally financial penalties for those who resisted. Thankfully, Angela Merkel is no longer on the political scene (in fact, she should be in prison), but her successor Olaf Scholz continued her migration policy. Until it became clear he would lose power because society rejected this policy, among many other progressive policies (snap elections in Germany are taking place today as we publish this post). Fortunately for Germans in Poland, an anti-migration conservative government was replaced the compliant government of Donald Tusk’s “smiling coalition”. With the typical ruthlessness and administrative efficiency they are known for, the Germans began moving migrants into Poland. Very soon, a dedicated facility at the border will open for this purpose.

In recent days, Germany's plans for dealing with migrants have become clearly visible thanks to official statements by German officials and politicians and the release of a revealing video shot at a new refugee center. According to a volunteer featured in the recording, as of March 1, Germany intends to relocate around 7,000 illegal migrants to Poland from just one such center, and the yearly figure could reach a minimum of 70,000. These individuals are set to be transferred from facilities in Germany, specifically from centers close to the Polish-German border. The footage was shared by Polish Member of Parliament Dariusz Matecki, who has called on anyone with firsthand knowledge of Germany’s migrant relocations to speak out.

Germany’s official numbers also illustrate the problem. According to data from the Federal authorities, last year Germany asked other EU countries to take back 74,000 migrants under the Dublin Regulation, and approval was obtained for 44,000 of those requests. However, fewer than 6,000 migrants were actually sent back. The creation of specialized “Dublin centers” in Germany is supposed to streamline the process, and the center at Eisenhüttenstadt (near the Polish border) will serve exactly this purpose. The German Ministry of the Interior makes no secret that transferring migrants to Poland will be a key priority.

"Due to Brandenburg's good contacts with neighboring Polish provinces, the Eisenhuettenstadt center's main focus is to return immigrants to Poland," we read in a press release published on the website of the German Ministry of Internal Affairs. In order to speed up the proceedings, the Central Office for Foreigners in Brandenburg will work closely with offices in Poland. "We are in good dialogue with Poland," the minister emphasized.

The plan is to hold migrants in enclosed buildings with only the bare minimum of resources: a bed, bread, and soap. Germany hopes these deterrent conditions, combined with quicker deportations, will discourage repeated entries from Poland to Germany.

Eisenhüttenstadt centre opening March 1st

According to a press release from Germany’s Ministry of the Interior, the new facility is set to begin operations on March 1. The Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, and Brandenburg’s Interior Minister, Katrin Lange, signed an agreement on February 17 to establish this center. While this may appear like a new take on forced relocation, German officials emphasize it is not part of the EU’s broader “migration-solidarity” mechanism (forced relocation). Instead, these deportations are being carried out under the existing Dublin Regulation, which stipulates that asylum seekers must remain in the first EU country in which they are registered. In practice, many migrants do not want to stay in Poland (or any other country on the EU’s periphery) because the German welfare system is far more generous, a benefit they are reluctant to give up.

German opposition politicians have accused Chancellor Scholz’s government of helplessness in the face of illegal migration. As soon as Scholz's ratings began to decline, he began trying to deport the migrants. Yet the statistics show that even with thousands of deportation orders, the number of actual transfers remains small. Migrants, having entered Germany with the promise of social benefits, are reluctant to move anywhere else – a resistance that drastically reduces the effectiveness of the deportation process.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited migrants from all over the world to Germany, which resulted in a wave of terrorist attacks and major social problems. Now they want to get rid of them by sending them to their man Donald Tusk (AI generated image).

At the same time, the German government’s stance does not hinge solely on deportations. Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently gave an interview on Deutschlandfunk, in which he stated that Donald Tusk would indeed implement the EU’s migrant pact. This comes in stark contrast to Tusk’s current claims that he opposes relocation. Tusk’s track record tells a different story. In 2021, at the start of the crisis on Poland’s eastern border, members of his party attacked the Border Guards for preventing illegal migrants from entering. His party also tried to block (fortunately unsuccessfully) the conservative PiS government’s effort to build a border wall, which after it was built significantly improved border security. Moreover, Tusk’s allies in the European Parliament repeatedly reported the Polish government for supposed “pushbacks” at the border, and lawsuits and financial penalties threats were invoked against Poland.

The conservative PiS government built a barrier on the border with Belarus to stop illegal migrants entering the border as part of a hybrid operation by Russia and Belarus. Tusk and his people were opposed...

Now, Tusk is suddenly talking about border security, even though reports indicate he is quietly allowing transfers of migrants from Germany, with potentially many more in the near future. In reality, Tusk, like most liberal-left elites in Europe, pursues a long-term goal of homogenizing populations across the continent, diluting national and cultural identities, and thereby undermining conservative electoral prospects. Migration has become an instrument of “social cybernetics,” a strategy that fosters a single “European nation” and marginalizes Christian and national traditions. Chancellor Scholz’s confidence that Tusk will cooperate stems from Tusk’s past and from their shared ideological outlook. The newly opened center in Eisenhüttenstadt is just a piece of a broader puzzle, setting the stage for large-scale migrant transfers that Germany can no longer politically afford to sustain within its own borders.

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