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A Polish soldier is dead, after being stabbed by an illegal migrant making an attempted incursion from the territory of neighboring Belarus. This incident represents a dangerous escalation of a hybrid war that has been ongoing on the eastern flank of NATO since 2021. Russia and its close ally Belarus have demonstrated the national security threat unchecked immigration can pose and its potential to be exploited and weaponized by hostile regimes to destabilize countries and societies they wish to undermine. In fact, the use of mass migration to pressure rivals is an emerging tactic in international relations known as instrumentalizedmigration.

As FAIR recently explained, the tactic either sends migrants in mass towards an opponent and/or refuses to stop them heading there, and also has been used by countries as diverse as Mexico, Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia. Nor is it a new tactic. Fidel Castro periodically unleashed waves of migration to the United States, both as a way to rid himself of dissidents and dump his criminals onto the beaches ofFlorida.

On May 28, 21-year-old soldier of the Warsaw Armored Brigade, Mateusz Sitek, tried to stop a group of illegal migrants attempting to break through the border barrier from Belarusian territory into Poland. Sitek attempted to use his shield to block the illegal entry, but was stabbed in the lung by the migrant. The migrants then lobbed stones and branches at the wounded soldier and a female border guard attempting to help him. He succumbed to his injuries a week later, causing an uproar in Polish politics only days before the elections to the European Parliament in which mass migration became a key issue. Another border guard was also recently struck in the head by an illegal migrant wielding a large and heavy tree branch, putting him in the hospital with seriousinjuries.

The U.S.-Mexico border and the Mediterranean Sea route (mainly into Spain and Italy) have been traditionally associated with large-scale illegal migration. The 2015 migrant crisis also saw the Balkan route via Greece, the Balkans, and Hungary towards Germany loom large on the radar. For the countries on NATOs eastern border such as Poland, the Baltic, states, and Finland mass illegal migration remained a largely abstract issue that happened elsewhere until 2021, when the pro-Russian dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, began flying in mainly Middle Eastern migrants and directing them towards the borders of his NATO rivals. Vladimir Putins Russia has similarly weaponized illegal mass migration against Finland in 2023 to punish that nation for its decision to joinNATO.

The previous Polish government of Mateusz Morawiecki took a tough stand against the crisis which included attempts to storm the border and throwing objects at border guards including by erecting border barriers and pushing back attempts by illegal migrants to rush the border. His successor, Donald Tusk, spent two years attacking and denouncing his predecessor and his allegedly inhumane border security approach. After coming to power as the leader of a coalition of liberal and left-wing parties in December, Tusk ultimately retained his predecessors tough talk on the issue and also acknowledged Russias role. However, the new speaker of the parliament, Szymon Hoownia, invited a group of illegal migrants to the Polish parliament in December, and rules governing the firing of warning shots at the border also seem to have been severely but quietly tightened by the new government. As one journalist asked on X: Prior to December 2023, soldiers guarding the Poland-Belarus border used firearms and fired warning shots during aggressive attacks by migrants. The law did not change, so whatchanged?

The scandal caused by the fatal stabbing of the soldier was compounded when the public learned that, between March and April, three Polish soldiers were arrested by the military police for firing warning shots at migrants attempting to storm the border. This happened in the vicinity of where the soldier would be stabbed. The arrested soldiers were suspended and their pay was cut in half. What the tragic incidents on NATOs eastern flank demonstrate is that any signs of weakness will be detected and exploited both by dangerous illegal migrants and hostile regimes that use them to their ownadvantage.

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Crisis on NATO's Eastern Border Shows How Anti-Western Regimes Weaponize Illegal Mass Migration | FAIRUS.org - Federation for American Immigration...