Poland’s responsible measures should be taken for granted by every Western country. Leaders who allow migrants to break the law and enter borders at will are complicit in crime.

Note how the EU-funded InfoMigrants site indicates that Poland is allowing exceptions for asylum seekers who “have arrived directly (meaning without stops in other countries) from a country where their ‘life and freedom are threatened.'” This should not be characterized as an “exception”; adherence to rule of law should be the rule, not the exception. Poland is one of few countries in the EU that is honoring the International Refugee Convention, and in so doing has legitimately argued that the migrants “are currently on Belarusian territory, meaning they should apply for asylum in that country. It refuses to register any asylum claims from individuals in the group or provide them with any assistance.”

Despite Poland’s reasoned and legally defensible response, Polish President Andrzej Duda’s call “for the state of emergency at the border to be extended for 60 days” has been “widely criticized by human rights organizations.”