Stop the Payment Card!
The discriminatory payment card is given to all refugees who receive benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act - starting in 2025 also in Heidelberg, Mannheim, and the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis. The payment card is nothing but right-wing symbolic politics that caters to racist prejudices and further marginalizes, discriminates, and controls those seeking protection. Efforts are being made to further restrict the lives of refugees and isolate Europe from the Global South. We oppose the restrictive payment card and want to put solidarity into practice!
Why do we reject the payment card?
The payment card severely restricts asylum seekers in their daily lives. Although the payment card resembles a VISA card in appearance, its application possibilities are significantly limited. In many regions, such as here in Baden-Württemberg, affected individuals can only withdraw up to €50 in cash per month. Furthermore, the card only works in certain stores. Shopping in small shops, at weekly or flea markets, as well as participation in cultural events is considerably hindered or made impossible. This is compounded by high bureaucratic hurdles, as, for example, every new transfer or direct debit must be approved by the responsible authority. Everyday financial decisions thus become an administrative act. Therefore, we see the payment card as:
1. Disempowerment of the affected: Refugees are restricted in their daily lives and cannot freely decide where and how to shop. Frugal and self-effective living arrangements are prevented, for example, because affordable shopping opportunities like second-hand stores, exchange, or used goods markets can often not be used.
2. Restriction of religious freedom: To maintain a halal or kosher diet, people need specially certified products from stores where payment with the card is often not possible.
3. Discrimination and social exclusion: Refugees are treated like second-class citizens with the payment card, preventing participation in social and cultural life.
4. Violation of personal rights: The payment card makes a person's residence status apparent when shopping. This can lead to stigmatization and poses the risk of exposure or hostility in everyday life.
5. Racist control and data protection concerns: The payment card provides the state with comprehensive insights into the finances of the affected and serves as a control instrument. Although authorities formally have no right to check expenses in detail, we are already aware of several cases in Heidelberg where this has happened. For additional cash withdrawals or transfers, affected individuals must submit justified applications, although these reasons are none of the authority's business.
6. Additional problems: The issuance of the payment card causes much higher costs and greater administrative effort for federal states and municipalities than the previous cash distribution - even though the introduction was supposed to simplify it. The waiting times for applications for more cash or a transfer to be approved can be very long. Direct debits fail, benefits are not provided, or must be actively retrieved.
7. Illegality: The blanket restriction of cash for asylum seekers to €50 is demonstrably illegal. Refugees already receive social benefits below the subsistence minimum, and now their access to cash is massively restricted.
8. Risk of expansion to other groups: Refugees serve as a de facto "test group." In the future, payment cards could also be used for other groups receiving social benefits. Such an expansion is already emerging in Hamburg. This would mean further normalization of surveillance, control, and restriction of social rights.
Advocates of the payment card often argue that it serves to prevent transfers abroad. In reality, only about seven percent of refugees even transfer money abroad, and the majority of these individuals work. The maximum of €441 per month in social benefits that refugees receive is simply not enough to send significant amounts abroad.
The massive restrictions on the daily lives of refugees, the obvious illegality of the blanket cash limit, the problems with the introduction, as well as the high bureaucratic and financial effort, are no accident but politically desired or deliberately accepted. The aim is to make life as difficult as possible for refugees in Germany to deter people from fleeing. In this logic, supposed "pull factors" are to be reduced. However, the push and pull factor model in migration research has long been deemed inadequate, as the reasons for flight and migration are highly complex and multifaceted.
The arguments for the payment card are therefore merely pretexts. The supposed problems that a payment card is supposed to solve simply do not exist. It is therefore nothing but right-wing symbolic politics and fits seamlessly into the racist isolation policies of recent years. The payment card promotes racist prejudices, normalizes distrust of refugees, and caters to a regressive longing for authoritarian control.
For us, it is clear: A system that is based on exclusion, control, and discrimination is not "in need of reform" but fundamentally wrong. We oppose this policy politically, in solidarity, and practically. With solidarity exchanges, we specifically support refugees in overcoming the massive restrictions due to the cash limit.
What are we doing against it?
As we do not want to acquiesce to the exclusion and control of refugee people and show solidarity with those affected, we organize exchange actions throughout the region.
The principle:
- People with a payment card purchase a shopping voucher at the supermarket
- During the voucher exchange, they receive the voucher value in cash
- People in solidarity without a payment card receive the vouchers in exchange for cash
If you click on "Heidelberg" or "Mannheim," you will see where you can exchange in the respective city.
How can you support?
Feel free to contact us and/or come to our meetings if you...
- want to bring in your own perspectives
- want to support the organization of the exchange programs
- want to take shifts in the exchange program
- can provide premises for us
- are organized in spaces and are ready to issue shopping vouchers in your premises
- can collectively take shopping vouchers from us, e.g. for your shared apartment, your house project, your club...
- want to participate in a nationwide political campaign against these racist attacks
- want to support legal action against the payment card.
- want to get to know us or have questions.
We also rely on donations. For the exchange actions, we need a financial buffer. Additionally, we need some funds, for example, for materials like flyers or posters, small purchases like lockable cash registers or barcode scanners, or for room rentals for information events. Donation receipts can be issued.
Should it happen that the financial buffer is no longer needed, it would be donated to the following organizations:
This means that your donation will do good in any case.
For a world of solidarity!
What do national structures look like?
There are already initiatives against the payment card and exchange initiatives like ours in many cities. We are networked nationwide in the network "Equal social rights for all!" (Website, Instagram)
Are you looking for an exchange opportunity in your city? An overview of all exchange initiatives can be found here.
Further information
- Scientific Assessment of the Payment Card
Flüchtlingsrat Baden-Württemberg - Ever fewer rights for refugee people
Flüchtlingsrat Baden-Württemberg - What you need to know about the new payment card for refugees
Landtag Baden-Württemberg