POLITYKA UCHODŹCZA W POLSCE. EWOLUCJA „POLA UCHODŹCZEGO” W LATACH 1990 – 2011

The article attempts to analyse the challenges facing Polish state migration policy regarding of persons trying to obtain refugee status. We use the metaphor „refugee field,” and focus both on the evolution of the refugee policy and the problems it may face in the near future. We discuss successively: changes in refugee movements the development and differentiation of relevant laws, the transformation of administrative structures dealing with these issues, as well as attitudes to the refugee theme in Polish public opinion. We attempt to demonstrate that the evolution of administrative and legal provisions for the protection of refugees (or „refugee field”) during the last two decades reveals tensions between the internationalization and adoption (transposition) of European solutions and the need to adapt them to Poland’s administrative conditions and geopolitical situation. The challenges faced by institutions dealing with these issues – and particularly state institutions (Office for Foreigners) – are in the short term related to legal and institutional changes (especially the new Aliens Act), and in the long run to the changing global trends in refugee movements, and Poland’s increasing role as an immigration country. The very specific problems arising in „the refugee field” (and in the migration policy) are difficult to predict and they will always show tensions between legal and humanitarian procedures, owing to the specifi c, individual life situations of refugee candidates.