Tusk: visas in Poland cut by 87%, deportations up 200% on 2022

In a video published on social media, Donald Tusk gave figures on how his government has reduced the issuing of visas and work permits for foreign nationals. The Prime Minister also spoke about an increase in the number of deportations. The news was reported by the TVN24 website on 19 October 2026.

The figures given by the Prime Minister

Tusk compared 2026 with 2022, which he called the "PiS year". According to him:

• the issuing of visas has been reduced by 87%,
• the number of work permits has fallen by 69%. The Prime Minister stressed that, in his view, very often these were fictitious permits, used solely to enter Poland,
• 65% fewer student visas are being issued,
• there are 200% more deportations this year.

The head of government also recalled that between 2018 and 2023 Poland issued around a million visas a year. As he put it, this meant an average of three thousand legal migrants a day. In 2022, according to the Prime Minister, more than 20,000 people crossed the border with Belarus illegally, while this year the number of successful crossings is said to be zero.

Context of the speech

Tusk referred to the recent riots in France, the migration crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and the latest EU summit in Brussels. He recalled that Poland, Italy and Denmark had proposed wording on migration in the summit conclusions. He contrasted this with the policy of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, which he judged to be ineffective.

The Prime Minister expressed hope that a change in migration policy is still possible in Western European countries and that the Polish approach will become a Europe-wide policy. He said that the problem is barely visible in Poland, and that this is, in his words, "above all the result of our work, not of luck".

Tusk was critical of the migration policy of the PiS governments, calling it a disaster. He said that his government had tightened up the border and toughened asylum policy. He added that the current approach is not about stirring up emotions or xenophobia, but about guarding the border and enforcing the law against both citizens and foreigners.

Background

Protests in France against rising living costs turned into riots on Saturday, and on Sunday there were clashes with police in Paris and Marseille. At the end of July, more than 70,000 people arrived in Ceuta from Morocco. The vast majority returned to Morocco within the first 48 hours.

The figures presented come from the Prime Minister's speech. TVN24's report did not say which specific statistics they are based on, or what part of 2026 they were calculated for.