This article presents a reflection on the experiences of Hungary and Poland in the face of the migration crisis. Its aim is to present the measures taken by the Hungarian government in 2015 and by the Polish government in 2021, when both countries were confronted with a particular threat related to the mass influx of illegal immigrants and the forcing of their borders. The response to the specific threat became the use of a special legal regime, Hungary introduced a state of crisis due to mass migration at the Hungarian-Serbian border, while Poland had a state of emergency along the Polish-Belarusian border. In this context, it was hypothesised that the decision to impose a special legal regime in Poland and Hungary was justified in the context of the specific threat that the migration crisis had become and the possibility to take quick action and respond adequately. In both cases, a decision was made to build a border wall to keep out illegal immigrants, so one can see some analogies in the actions of the Polish and Hungarian authorities, as well as their anti-immigration rhetoric. The comparative method, the normative approach and the discourse method were applied in the article.