Official data show scale of German migrant returns to Poland

Official data from the Polish and German authorities show that Germany is sending hundreds of migrants back to Poland every month.

However, the figures also indicate that returns are being carried out at a lower rate this year than in the recent past, although numbers have been ticking up since May, when Germany introduced new rules allowing asylum seekers to be turned away at its borders.

Germany's migrant returns have become a major political issue in Poland, with the right-wing opposition criticizing the government for allowing them to happen and self-declared “citizen patrols” forming at the border to prevent them from taking place.

The government notes that, in fact, comparable data show that returns were higher in 2023, when the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party – now the main opposition – was in power. It has accused its critics of misrepresenting the true situation on the border.

Nevertheless, amid mounting pressure, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced this week that Poland will, from Monday, reintroduce controls on its borders with Germany (and also Lithuania, which has become a pathway for irregular migration) in response to prevent the “uncontrolled flow of migrants”.

There are three ways in which Germany returns migrants to Poland, two of which have been in operation for many years, the third of which is relatively new (and now occurs on a much larger scale than the other two combined).

The first is the EU's Dublin Regulation , which stipulates that, if an asylum seeker submits a claim for international protection in one EU member state but then moves to another before it is processed, they can be returned to the original member state.

The second, a so-called “readmission procedure”, is based on a bilateral agreement between the two countries that allows the return of other types of migrants who have illegally moved from Poland to Germany.

Under these two methods, the numbers of returns since the current government came to power at the end of 2023 are lower than they were in the final year of the PiS government.

In 2023, under PiS, there was a combined total of 968 returns from Germany to Poland under Dublin and “readmission”, which fell to 688 in 2024 and stood at 314 between 1 January and 22 June 2025, show figures from the Polish border guard.

In both 2023 and 2024, the national group most often returned under these two procedures was Russians (157 in 2023 and 112 in 2024), according to border guard data obtained by broadcaster TVN. So far this year, the list is topped by Afghans (58), who were also the second-largest group in 2024 (79).

The Dublin and “readmission” figures have, however, been dwarfed by a new type of return resulting from Germany's decision to reintroduce controls on its border with Poland and the Czech Republic in October 2023 in order to prevent illegal migration.

The measures have remained in place since then (and were in 2024 extended to all of Germany's borders ). They allow the German authorities to immediately turn back migrants seeking to cross the border without the right to do so.

In 2024, Germany turned away 9,369 people at the Polish border on this basis, according to German police data obtained by TVN. Just over half of those were Ukrainians (4,704) followed by Afghans (580), Syrians (470), Georgians (377) and Indians (224).

Meanwhile, data obtained by Polish newspaper Fakt , also from the German police, show that the number of such border returns has actually declined this year. Since in 2024 it averaged 781 per month, the figures in 2025 so far have been:

• January: 516
• February: 462
• March: 485
• April: 594
• May: 708

The reason for the rise in May is likely to have been the introduction early that month by the newly installed government of a new regulation allowing asylum seekers to be turned back at the border without assessing their claims.

In a statement to Polish news website Wirtualna Polska at the start of July, Germany's federal interior ministry said that, since 8 May, the German authorities have turned away around 1,300 people at the Polish border, of whom around 130 were asylum seekers.

The average monthly number of returns over this period still remains below the figure in 2024, but it this recent uptick, and the fact that asylum seekers are now being sent back, that Tusk used to justify the restoration of border controls on the Polish side.

“For about a month now, the operational practices on the Polish-German border have undergone a clear shift,” said Tusk on 1 July. “The German side refuses to allow into its territory – unlike in the past – migrants who are heading to Germany from various directions, for example seeking asylum.”

The new controls, which go into effect on Monday, will also be introduced on the border with Lithuania in an effort to block off a growing route for irregular migrants to pass through Poland.

Since 2021, tens of thousands of migrants – mainly from Asia and Africa – have tried to cross from Belarus into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia with the encouragement and assistance of the Belarusian authorities. Those who do manage to cross usually then try to head westwards towards Germany.

However, the Rzeczpospolita daily notes that, because Poland has made its border with Belarus so hard to cross, migrants are increasingly seeking to enter the EU via Latvia and Lithuania before heading to Germany via Poland.

So far this year, 251 foreigners have been detained in Poland after crossing from Lithuania, which is more than in the whole of 2024, when there were 175 such cases, a border guard told the newspaper. The largest numbers are from Somalia, Morocca and Algeria.

Main image credit: Cezary Aszkielowicz / Agencja Wyborcza