About half of them appear to be Polish citizens that emigrated illegally to the West, mostly during the 1980s. Despite the fact that total emigration exceeds immigration several times over, the immigration of educated people is higher than that of educated emigrants. Also, it appears that the propensity for educated people to emigrate is declining, as possibilities for employment in the country increase. There are also significant numbers of foreigners coming to Poland. Apart from those entering legally and those with a work permit mentioned above, who are small in numbers, there are those operating independently, in particular petty traders, and those making their way through Poland to the West, whose numbers are impressive.
Petty traders come to Poland as tourists.
In addition the annual flow of Asians and North Africans attempting to reach the West, via Poland, is estimated at 100,000. During the second half of 1995 almost 390,000 people were registered as immigrants in the Russian Federation. This number was, however, much smaller than that for the same period in 1994, which was around 650,000. In the three year period, 1993-1995 there were approximately three million registered immigrants to the Russian Federation. The net addition to the Russian population was 1.75 million during these three years.