Next year, Poland will be holding its parliamentary elections, in which the topic of migration is expected to play a central role. It has been agitating Polish politics for some time now. In the summer 2025, Karol Nawrocki became Poland’s new President, succeeding Andrzej Duda. Nawrocki has claimed a much stronger anti-migrant stance, vetoing a number of laws, and opposing the reform of the Ukrainian refugee status initially proposed by the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
“Discussions around migrations are only going to get more and more tense in this new electoral period.”
Supported by members of Parliament from the conservative PiS party, “President Nawrocki offered an even stricter reshaping of the law, which, after another round of multipartisan negotiations, was passed in September 2025, with further cuts on social benefits and support for vulnerable groups coming into force in January, March and, most recently, July 2026. Each time, a new group was losing support. In July it was children benefitting from support in the collective shelters”, Agnieszka explains to me.
This law aims at limiting the rights and benefits granted to Ukrainian refugees, and, in particular, those who are not currently active on the labour market. This conditionality of access to housing or children benefits relies on the fallacious and overused argument that public funds would be wasted on “lazy people abusing the system”. To Agnieszka, this is nothing but “a joke”, considering the very limited capacity of Poland’s welfare state. “No one can decently live out of this”, she tells me. The people this reform impacts, in reality, turn out to be the most vulnerable ones already: “Helpless people, the elderly, children, people with disabilities, mental health issues… We are seeing a growing number of those in marginalized conditions, who are now further excluded from the system.” The government’s narrative benefitted from a very heavy disinformation coming from a diversity of actors. Anti-migration political parties and groups could indeed rely on the support of Russian troll farms in what turned out to be a massive and successful example of manipulation of the public opinion. “The support to Ukrainian refugees in the first years of the war was overwhelming”, Agniezska explains. “Now more than 40% of the Polish population express a clear hostility towards them“.
“We remain determined to recognize the social and human value newcomers bring to society”
In such a context, the mission of civil society organisations is clear: “We are there to bring common sense, to calm the tensions down, using precise notions and accurate facts. Beyond the easy discourse on the economic benefits of the migrant workforce, we remain determined to recognize the social and human value newcomers bring to society.” NGOs’ struggle is further hindered by the economic crisis the humanitarian field has entered since the US’ withdrawal from the scene of international aid. “Budgets have been cut by 30% on average”, Agnieszka notes. Yet, those hurdles are not stopping her.
The Polish government’s restriction of the benefits granted to Ukrainian refugees was enlarged in January and March, with the suspension of the social assistance to elderly people. Children remained covered by the programme until the end of the school year, after which families started being evicted from government-run accommodation centers – regardless of the fact that child homelessness is officially illegal in Poland.
It did not take long for Agnieszka and her comrades to fight back. In an unprecedented alliance between civil society organisations and media outlets, they quickly launched a massive advocacy and fundraising campaign. The combination of hands-on knowledge from practitioners and activists and a wide media coverage shed light on the situations of people coming to seek support from organisations – elderly or disabled people who did not have access to assistance nor healthcare facilities, people with cancer who lost financial coverage for their treatment. Although not designed as such, the campaign had an incredible success: “We sometimes got live coverage from two TV stations and three radio stations at the same time”, Agnieszka remembers, still in disbelief. “I personally witnessed a half a million zlotys increase of the fund in front of my eyes, during a 15-minute appearance on a TV show!“
“We could see people losing rights every day”
Around fifteen thousand people contributed, with even three donations of twenty thousand zlotys. One million was collected in a few days, which, to Agnieszka, spoke to the shock of people in front of such blatant injustice: “We could see specific people losing rights every day.” The fund has exceeded two million zlotys since the launch of the campaign, but the few organisations managing it do not have the capacity to spend it as fast as the media would wish to keep the momentum. “We need to document experiences, assess needs, raise up to humanitarian standards. This takes time. As much as we can see the disappointment of our colleagues from the media, we, as organisations, have a mission to preserve people’s privacy and dignity too.”
More than a financial boost, the campaign has been a powerful advocacy tool, forcing authorities to take action. Agnieszka and her colleagues have been invited to the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Labour, and welcomed with gratitude by the Ukrainian consulate. “We are called by the very ministries which are cutting funds in the first place.” Agnieszka sighs, well aware of the irony. “You criticize them and then have to go find solutions together.” If the crowdfunding campaign far exceeded its initial fifty thousand zlotys objective, it still remains “a drop in the ocean when it comes to real needs”, Agnieszka admits. Nor does it constitute a sustainable solution. “We want to show support and address the needs of people seeking our help, we don’t want to become a public social service”.
For Agnieszka indeed, the struggle remains: “We need to talk about human rights, racism, violence, justice.” And never stop fighting for it.
Aude Sathoud
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Cover picture: Agnieszka Kosowicz, President of the Polish Migration Forum Foundation and AWoN practitioner, at the initiative of the fundraising campaign.