Inside an immigration office in central Warsaw, dozens of people, mostly speaking Russian and Ukrainian, sit and wait for their numbers to appear on screens.
Filipino, Congolese and Vietnamese nationals, to name a few, are also waiting in line.
May, a 49-year-old from the Philippines, came to Poland last year with eight other Filipinos, to work on a factory line for a cosmetics company.
“I have just collected my three-year visa,” she told RTÉ News, adding that the immigration staff were “very accommodating”.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees have settled in Poland, and they have the same access rights to Poland’s labour market as EU citizens.
Ukrainian, Belarusian and Georgian nationals account for most of the immigration from non-EU countries to Poland, but migrants from elsewhere are arriving too.
Continue here: RTE
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