The Law and Justice party announced a plan that at first glance looks like ordinary pre-election rhetoric: deport Ukrainian men of conscription age who do not have legal employment in Poland. This was stated by party member Tobiasz Bocheński at the PiS congress in Warsaw, where Jarosław Kaczyński also spoke.
But behind the wording "no legal employment" lies a practical problem that concerns not politicians, but specific people.
Who actually falls into the risk group
In Poland, a significant portion of Ukrainians work without official registration — not because they evade the system, but because the labor market itself supports this. Construction, agriculture, delivery, small business — sectors where "envelope" payments remain the norm even for Polish citizens.
If the regulation on deportation for lack of legal employment becomes law, the blow will fall not on an abstract "evader," but on an ordinary worker whom the employer deliberately failed to register in order to save on taxes and fees.
The deportation center operates based on the fact of a document, not the intention of a person — and this is a difference that could cost someone the right to remain in the country.
Why this is not a guarantee, but so far just a campaign platform proposal
PiS is currently in opposition, and this proposal is part of an election platform, not current law. Nevertheless, the rhetoric around Ukrainians in Poland has intensified more than once: the issues of social benefits, employment, and mobilization status have repeatedly become an instrument of domestic political struggle.
The politician added that the security of Central and Eastern Europe depends on Ukraine's victory — a thesis that should soften the harshness of the proposal, but in practice does not change its essence: the mechanism of deportation centers is created precisely to accelerate expulsion, not for dialogue about specific cases.
What does this mean for those already in Poland
For Ukrainians working without a contract, this news is a signal to check their status before such regulations take force. Legalizing work through an agency or official contract may turn out to be not just a bureaucratic formality, but literally a matter of the right to remain in the country.
The question remains open: will this proposal become part of PiS's actual program for the next election, and if the party returns to power — how much time will it take to launch deportation centers that will affect not those evading mobilization, but ordinary participants in the shadow labor market?
