Securitization of Eastern Borders Route - practice and discourse in Poland during the (humanitarian) crisis of 2021/2022.

In summer 2021, thousands of People on the Move approached the Polish-Belarusian border. They were lured by the promises of smugglers and Belarusian authorities to access relatively safe passage to Western Europe. Migrants and asylum-seekers from the Middle East and North Africa, brought by airplanes to Belarus, joined the so-called Eastern Borders Migration Route through Belarus and Poland. Before, it was a path to safety for asylum-seekers from FSU (predominantly from North Caucasus). However, since 2015 Polish ruling party has been actively securitizing (Muslim) migrants and asylum-seekers (Cap, 2018; Follis, 2019; Krzyżanowski, 2017, 2020; Narkowicz, 2018). This discourse and practice resulted not only in refusal to accept the relocation of asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece but also in pushbacks of asylum-seekers from North Caucasus and Central Asia at the Polish-Belarusian border in the period of 2015-2019 (Klaus, 2021; Klaus et al., 2018; Szczepanik, 2018). The key argument of the study is that the securitization of asylum-seekers and the Eastern Borders Route by the Polish government led to exploitation of the issue by the external actor - Belarus. Within constructed political identity, based on the discourse of threat, the Polish government could not react differently than enhancing further securitization of migrants and asylum-seekers and declaring the state of emergency. This increased polarization in the public debate concerning asylum policy and human rights when humanitarian organizations attempted to counter governmental discourse and practice. The study’s primary goal is to understand the evolution of security and humanitarian discourses and practices in Poland before and after the intervention of external actor. Theoretically, the study lies down within the scope of Securitization Theory and constructivist approach to Human Security. It focuses on internal discourse and practice evolution and the role of external actor exploiting constructed identities and threats (Léonard & Kaunert, 2021; Webb, 2020). Methodologically, the study consists of the analysis of practice, and laws.