Amnesty International and Human Rights First Urge Poland to Halt ICE Deportations to Ukraine

(POLAND) — Amnesty International and Human Rights First urged Poland on May 14, 2026, to stop helping U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, move Ukrainians through Polish territory for deportation to Ukraine, saying the transfers send people into an active war zone.

The two groups published a joint letter addressed to Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Anna Błaszczak-Banasiak. They asked her government to end cooperation with U.S. removals that pass through Poland before deportees are taken into Ukraine.

The appeal centers on a series of removals that used Polish territory after the United States ordered Ukrainians out. Amnesty International and Human Rights First said those operations, taken together, show Poland is doing more than handling ordinary transit while people are sent into a country under continuing attack.

ICE conducted at least two such operations through Poland, the groups said. One on November 19, 2025, deported 50 Ukrainians, including 45 men and 5 women, through Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport and the Shehyni border crossing into Ukraine.

A second operation in March 2026 removed more than 50 people. Another ICE flight landed at Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport on April 30, 2026, with an unknown number of Ukrainians aboard.

The chronology laid out by the groups places Poland at the center of a deportation route used more than once over a period of months. Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport and the Shehyni crossing appear repeatedly in that account, linking a U.S. removal system to a land transfer into Ukraine.

Uzra Zeya, CEO and President of Human Rights First, said: “Forcibly transferring Ukrainians into an active war zone, where missiles strike nationwide, shocks the conscience and violates international law.” Her statement tied the removals not only to the danger on the ground in Ukraine but also to obligations states face when they move people across borders.

Eleanor Acer, Senior Director for Global Humanitarian Protection at Human Rights First, said: “With armed conflict raging and deadly aerial attacks, it is abundantly clear that this is not the time for returns to Ukraine.” Acer’s statement pointed to the immediate conditions in the country rather than any narrow dispute over travel routing.

The groups also cited assessments by the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR. They pointed to a warning issued Thursday, after a deadly aerial attack in western Ukraine, stating that “no part of the country should be considered safe.”

UNHCR has advised states against forcibly returning Ukrainian nationals, including people whose asylum claims have been rejected, because of the ongoing armed conflict. That assessment cuts directly against the premise that deportees can be sent back safely if another country acts only as a transfer point.

Poland has maintained that it serves only as a transit point and does not take part in deportation decisions. That position draws a line between the U.S. decision to remove people and Poland’s role in allowing flights and overland transfers to continue across its territory.

Publicly available details on any arrangement between Washington and Warsaw have remained sparse. As of late November 2025, no public details existed on a U.S.-Poland agreement, though some arrangement facilitated the November 19, 2025 transfer described by the groups.

That gap matters to the demands in the letter. Amnesty International and Human Rights First are asking not only for Poland to stop facilitating the transfers, but also for scrutiny of how the route was set up and who authorized it.

Human Rights First called for investigations into the incidents, protection from refoulement, dignity in treatment, and effective remedies for deportees. Refoulement is the return of a person to persecution or harm under international law, and the group’s use of the term placed the deportations within a legal framework rather than a diplomatic dispute.

The organizations also demanded that Poland deny facilitation of what they called the Trump administration’s “cruel and inhumane mass removal campaign.” That language sharpened the political edge of the appeal, casting the deportations as part of a broader U.S. effort rather than isolated removal flights.

Their letter combined operational detail, legal argument and a current security assessment. By identifying dates, locations and passenger totals, the groups moved beyond a general warning and described a route they say already carried deportees from U.S. custody into a country at war.

That record, as they presented it, begins with the November 19, 2025 transfer through Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport and the Shehyni border crossing, continues with removals in March 2026, and extends to the April 30, 2026 arrival of another ICE flight at the same airport. The pattern gave their request to Błaszczak-Banasiak a specific target: stop Polish territory from being used again.

Their argument rested on the present state of the war in Ukraine as much as on the mechanics of deportation. Zeya’s reference to missiles striking nationwide, Acer’s reference to armed conflict and deadly aerial attacks, and UNHCR’s warning that “no part of the country should be considered safe” all pointed in the same direction.

Poland’s insistence that it does not decide who gets deported leaves open the narrower question raised by the letter: whether a transit state can continue assisting in removals once the destination and the risks are known. Amnesty International and Human Rights First answered that question in the negative and pressed the government to act now, before another ICE flight turns a Polish stopover into the final leg of a forced return to Ukraine.