Letter from the former DUW inspector: "I am a migrant just like you"

    | EN | UA | 

Dear Foreigners,

I have finished my job at the Lower Silesian Voivodship Office in Wrocław, I no longer perform my duties as an inspector. A huge number of residence applications makes everyone who leaves this job leave more outstanding than completed issues. You should know that I did everything I could to finish my job with the latter. Now it is the time for summaries: I am not satisfied with all the decisions, if I could do some things again, I would have done them differently. However, most cases ended successfully - honest people were allowed to lead a peaceful life in Poland, people who threatened our common security were refused.

You do not know what working behind the walls of an office looks like. This is a good opportunity to change it, to meet a person who used to work there.

I am also a migrant, just like you. My family home is in a small town far from Wroclaw.

In Lower Silesia, no one was waiting for me, no one provided free housing, I had to look for a job myself. There is a different air here, the environment, different people than those with whom I grew up. That is why I know what migration is and I have never felt different from you, I used to be just on the other side of the process. There are more people who can relate.

Unfortunately, the residence card evokes a lot of emotions in many of you, because if everything could be resolved faster, tears of happiness or bitterness would only be incidental. Employees also feel this pressure. Those workers who are aware of the problem work hard to catch up so that in the end relevant documents could be delivered in line with legal terms and conditions.

After almost 2 years of work, I can say that it looks more optimistic now. Lower Silesian Voivodship Office, together with supporting institutions, takes effective measures to improve the situation (a hotline was set up, professional employees were hired, Citizen and Foreigner Affairs Department was reformed, a regulation was issued with a new list of professions exempted from providing the Labour Market Test).

The effects of the changes can be noticed in numbers. According to the publicly available statistics on the website migracje.gov.pl, after mid-2021, Lower Silesian Voivodship Office has issued over 9,000 decisions for temporary residence and the number of decisions in the entire year 2020 amounted to approximately 11,500. It follows that for half a year 2021 almost as much was done as in the whole year 2020. It takes time to catch up, but now it is happening faster.

Unfortunately, there are people who are not willing to improve the functioning of the office or the welfare of thousands of people. These are the people who make it difficult to issue decisions faster, who evoke negative emotions in Foreigners, and take away the energy of employees involved in solving the problem.

At this point, I would like to appeal to people in the branch of ​​legalizing the stay of Foreigners – either in private companies or administration (if they recognize themselves in the content of this letter), who do not like their job. There are no bad people - there are just people who have not found a suitable place for them. Please, find a different job that will give you satisfaction. By working in an area that you don't like, you hurt not only yourself but others. I know that it is a difficult time in the labour market, but I encourage you to persistently look for a job that will not only bring you money, but also help you fulfill your life mission.

Let us all remember - evil has no nationality, let's not judge people by where they come from but for what their actions are. There are Poles who harm their country and there are foreigners who do good things here every day. It is in our common interest to live in harmony. Let us defend our good values ​​and let us not be provoked by chauvinists.

XENOPHOBIA IS A TRAGEDY FOR POLAND. Let's fight it together.

Be guided by reason and positive emotions, and everything will be fine.

Working at the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Office was my life mission. I worked with commitment. I will continue to implement projects in line with the values ​​that I have expressed in this letter. I am not satisfied with everything, some mistakes will not be fixed. However, life goes on and I will do my best to continue using my experience for good purposes.

I wish all people of good will to succeed. I wish people of ill will a change. I wish every foreigner a quick settlement of the legalization of stay procedure.

former DUW inspector
Dominik Wojciechowski

The letter was published in Ukrainian on: inpoland.net.pl

_______________