Why do we reject the payment card?

The payment card represents an intrusion into the autonomy of refugees and leads to a restriction of participation in everyday life. In the Rhein-Neckar district, there will be a cash limit of 50€. It is expected that there will be a similar restriction in Heidelberg. Transfers, online shopping, and contracts are not possible or only possible with great effort. Many areas of life require cash: e.g. small shops, weekly markets, flea markets, or cultural events. All of this is restricted by the payment card.

Even if the payment card resembles a debit card from the outside, its application possibilities are much more limited since the card only works in specific stores. And if those affected want to save money despite limited benefits to support their family abroad, it is very difficult. The card is problematic in terms of data protection. The payment card provides authorities with insights and possibilities for control.

What are our plans?

We don't want to accept this discriminatory and exclusionary card in Heidelberg and stand in solidarity with those affected.

To counteract the restrictions of the payment card, we are joining forces locally. Based on the model of many other initiatives nationwide, we also want to organize a voucher exchange in Heidelberg and the surrounding area.

The principle:

1. People with payment cards buy a shopping voucher at the supermarket
2. In the voucher exchange, they receive the voucher value in cash
3. Supportive people without payment cards receive the vouchers in exchange for cash

The exchange actions are not illegal but a response to an allegedly unconstitutional policy since the fundamental rights of those affected are violated, and the cash limit of 50€ endangers the humane minimum existence. (Read more at: Partial victory in urgent proceedings against restrictive payment card: PRO ASYL and GFF support the suing family | PRO ASYL)

How can you support?

Feel free to contact us and/or join our meetings if you...

• ...want to bring your own perspectives
• ...want to support the organization of the exchanges
• ...want to take shifts in the exchange office
• ...can provide us with premises
• ...are organized in spaces and are willing to issue shopping vouchers in your spaces
• ...can collectively acquire shopping vouchers from us, e.g., for your flat share, your project, your association...
• ...want to participate in a political campaign against these racist attacks
• ...want to support legal action against the payment card or simply if you want to get to know us or have questions.

We also rely on donations. For exchange actions, we need a financial buffer. Additionally, we need some money, for example, for materials such as flyers or posters, small purchases like lockable cash boxes or barcode scanners, or room rentals for info events. Donation receipts can be issued.

If the financial buffer is no longer needed, it would be donated to the following organizations:

• Sea-Watch e.V.
• ALARMPHONE
• Asylum Workgroup Heidelberg e.V.
• Café Talk

This means that your donation will do good in any case.

For a world of solidarity!

What do supra-regional structures look like?

There are already initiatives in many cities against the payment card and exchange initiatives like ours. We are networked nationwide in the network "Equal social rights for all!" (Website, Instagram)

Further information

• Scientific assessment of the payment card
  Refugee Council Baden-Württemberg
• Fewer and fewer rights for refugees
  Refugee Council Baden-Württemberg
• What you need to know about the new payment card for refugees
  State Parliament Baden-Württemberg

1. Protected individuals in Heidelberg have an account like others. With the check card, they can dispose of their money. If they are not yet in employment, they initially receive benefits under Asylum BlG. These are to be transferred to payment cards in the future, which limits both cash expenditures and transfers/direct debits. Aim: No transfers to their own family and to traffickers, deterrence, reduction of "pull factors". This background for the payment card violates our fundamental rights: the prohibition of discrimination, the protection of the family, personable rights.
2. The payment card is an intrusion into personable rights. Refugees are coerced by it. Shopping in the stores they prefer may not take place because setting up the debit card reader for small shops is too expensive. Authorization by the welfare office is required for transfers and direct debits. If there are special needs, a request must be made. 50 € in cash is an amount at the discretion of the office. The assignment of the payment card itself is subject to discretion. This will not only additionally burden the administration but also monstrously increases the dependence of those affected on the office, because they lose transparency.
3. The goal of introducing the payment card will not be achieved anyway. The weekly report 49/2024 of DIW shows that remittances come from refugees only to a very small extent, and certainly least from those who receive benefits under Asylum BlG, as these benefits (maximum 441€) are below citizen income and certainly do not meet the requirements of the BVerfG ruling of 2012, according to which the subsistence minimum must not be relativized for migration policy reasons. Of course, reasons for flight outweigh the question of benefits.
4. The introduction of a restrictive payment card is part of a major attack on the rights of people seeking protection. The reduction of social rights for refugees goes hand in hand with the expansion of Fortress Europe and efforts to gradually divest itself of its responsibilities for refugee protection (Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, Article 14) and the obligations, not least in the form of the Geneva Refugee Convention. The extreme right has managed to develop a dominant discourse that views people seeking protection only as a threat. Unfortunately, democratic parties have increasingly picked up this racist narrative for years, pushing forward processes of desolidarization and shifting the societal discourse to the right. The payment card is nothing but populist symbolic politics that serves racism and further marginalizes, discriminates, and controls those seeking protection. Integration looks different!
5. The introduction of the payment card is not without alternatives. NRW has introduced an opt-out regulation that allows municipalities not to introduce the payment card. Several large cities have already made use of this. But resistance is also stirring in Lower Saxony: although there is no opt-out regulation there, the city of Hanover has declared that it will not introduce the payment card and is thus self-confidently offering open resistance. The city council has declared, with a majority and with the factions of CDU, SPD, and Greens, that the card will not be introduced because it is discriminatory.

We urge the factions of the Heidelberg City Council and the administration to also reject the discriminatory and pointless payment card in Heidelberg.

Initial signatories

• Bettina Bauer-Teiwes
• Angelika Binding
• Lothar Binding
• Dr. Gabriele Buschbeck
• Dr. Konrad Buschbeck
• Waseem Butt
• Ulrike Duchrow
• Prof. Dr. Ulrich Duchrow
• Heidi Flassak
• Prof. Dr. Ute Gerhard
• Dr. Jörg Götz-Hege
• Gudrun Sidrassi-Harth
• Prof. Dr. Dietrich Harth
• Dr. Susanne Himmelheber
• Zara Dilan Kiziltas
• Margret Krannich
• Maria Kühn-Ludewig
• Prof. Dr. Wilfried Kühn
• Mia Lindemann
• Sahra Mirow
• Willi Morlock
• Jean-Michel Räber
• Hilde Stolz
• Prof. Dr. Ute Straub
• Nera Vukovic-Bringezu
• Jochen Winter (Catholic Refugee Pastor)
• Ulrich Wohland
• Bernd Zieger
• Anti-fascist Initiative Heidelberg
• Asylum Workgroup Heidelberg e.V.
• Stop Payment Card! Heidelberg and Rhein-Neckar
• Chancen gestalten Heidelberg e.V.
• DIE ZEP
• FLINTA* Art Room
• Women Help Women e.V. Heidelberg
• International Women's and Family Center Heidelberg e.V.
• linksjugend ['solid] Heidelberg
• Students Against Right in Heidelberg
• Seebrücke Heidelberg
• Socialist Youth – Die Falken Subdistrict Heidelberg