(LifeSiteNews) – Polish farmers protesting European Union climate mandates are now patrolling the German border, deepening a political crisis for Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Since mid-May, Polish farmers have blocked roads over the EU’s Green Deal and cuts to agricultural subsidies. But now, many are shifting focus to what they call a more immediate threat: reports of German federal police secretly dropping off illegal migrants inside Polish territory.
Despite government attempts to downplay the issue, videos circulating online have fueled public anger and renewed accusations that Warsaw is failing to defend its borders.
One widely shared video shows German police vans driving down remote forest roads near the Polish border to unload migrants. “This time, the Germans got caught,” one citizen journalist posted, as members of the Civic Border Defense Movement confronted the drivers.
German police vans are trying to drive into Poland on small dirt roads in the forests along the Polish-German border and drop off illegal migrants.
A Polish Citizens Patrol movement has been launched to guard the border and stop the procedure.
This time the Germans got caught. pic.twitter.com/q0J89eBUkZ
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 6, 2025
Last week, Tusk reinstated temporary border checks — a reversal after dismissing the claims as far right “hysteria.”
But his government has moved more decisively against the Civic Border Defense Movement, a volunteer network of local citizens conducting patrols. Deputy Interior Minister Wiesław Szczepański accused the group of “unlawfully” checking vehicles and urged them to leave security to the state.
Since then, even more volunteers have signed on, including entire groups of farmers from Szczecin, where EU protests had been focused for nearly two months.
Similar groups have emerged in the Netherlands, also pointing to German authorities as the source of cross-border migrant flows.
The scandal is also destabilizing Tusk’s coalition government. A meeting between members of Poland 2050, his centrist partner, and the conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) has sparked fears of a political defection. The meeting reportedly focused on “saving Poland” from the crisis.
Tusk’s critics say that the larger problem is the government’s silence toward Berlin, as Tusk has not challenged German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on the alleged migrant dumping.
“The state is failing, so the citizens are acting,” organizers of an upcoming July 19 protest declared. “Ordinary people from every corner of the country stepped forward with a clear message: WE WANT TO LIVE IN SAFETY!”
