The Polish Act on legalization of stay of some foreigners in the territory of the Republic of Poland (hereinafter referred to as - “the abolition act”) came into effect on 1 January 2012. It set up so called amnesty for foreigners who are illegally staying in Poland. Due to the abolition act, foreigners, who want their stay to be legalized, will have to submit applications for temporary residents permit to the competent voivode. Applications may be submitted during a period of six months i.e. between 1 January 2012 and 2 July 2012. Detailed information concerning abolition (including procedure and rules of submitting the applications for temporary residents permit on the grounds of “abolition act”) you may find here: Principles of abolition

ABOLITION RECORD

More then 5,7 thousand foreigners staying illegally in Poland have already applied for abolition (amnesty for irregular migrants). The Office for Foreigners informs that by the 18^th April 2012, applications of 5574 persons have been registered. Within similar actions in 2003 and 2007/2008, applications of 5541 foreigners were registered (3508 applications in 2003 and 2033 applications in 2007/2008). Thus, the number of people applying for abolition this year exceed the number of applications of both 2003 and 2007/2008 actions.

Most of all applications have been submitted to mazowiecki voivode, as well as to to łódzki, lubelski, śląski, dolnośląski, wielkopolski i podlaski voivodes.

For abolition most often apply citizens of: Vietnam, Ukraine, Pakistan, Armenia, China, Egypt, India, Russia, Belarus and Georgia.

The majority of applicants (more than 97%) are foreigners who have been staying in Poland for an uninterrupted period from at least 20^th December 2007 and on 1^st January 2012 were in Poland illegally ( pursuant to article  1 paragraph 1 of “abolition act”).

Less than 3 %  of applicants are foreigners who applied for refugee status in the past and:

• who have resided in the territory of Poland for an uninterrupted period from at least 1 January 2010, who prior to that date were granted a final decision on rejection to award the refugee status along with a judgement to expel them and whose stay within this territory was illegal on 1^st of January of 2012 (pursuant to article 1 paragraph 2 of “abolition act”);
• against whom proceedings were being carried out on 1 January 2010 for the award of the refugee status that were instituted due to repeated application (pursuant to article 1 paragraph 3 of “abolition act”).

Up to now, 1500 of persons have legalized their stay in Poland

THE HANDBOOK ON AMNESTY FOR FOREIGNERS

The Ministry of Interior has published the handbook on Amnesty for Foreigners. This handbook aims to provide a guide to the procedure concerning granting the amnesty for foreigners in the Territory of Poland , in particular it provides Foreigners with the following information:

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•        What kind of documents you have to enclose before the Voivodeship Office;
•        Where you can submit the application concerning above mentioned permission;
•        Where you can find information concerning the amnesty for Foreigners;

 The handbook has been drawn up in five localized versions: Polish, English, Russian, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.