1. People seeking protection have an account in Heidelberg like everyone else. With the giro account card, they can access their money. If they are not yet in the workforce, they initially receive benefits according to the AsylbLG. These will be transferred to payment cards in the future, with which both cash expenditures and transfers/debits are restricted. Objective: No transfers to own family and smugglers, deterrence, reduction of "pull factors". This background for the payment card violates our basic rights: the prohibition of discrimination, the protection of the family, personal rights.
2. The payment card is an infringement of personal rights. Refugees are thereby controlled. Shopping in their preferred stores may not be possible because setting up the card reader is too expensive for small shops. Transfers and debits require approval from the Social Welfare Office. If there are special needs, an application must be submitted. 50 € cash is an amount at the discretion of the office. The allocation of the payment card itself is discretionary. This will not only additionally burden the administration but also monstrously increase the dependency of the concerned on the office, especially because they lose transparency.
3. The aim of introducing the payment card will not be achieved anyway. The weekly report 49/2024 of the DIW shows that foreign transfers are only made to a very small extent by refugees, and certainly least of all by those receiving benefits under the AsylbLG, since these benefits (a maximum of 441€) are below the citizen's income and certainly do not meet the requirements set by the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in 2012, according to which the subsistence minimum should not be relativized through migration policy. Also, flight reasons naturally outweigh the question of benefits.
4. The introduction of a restrictive payment card is part of a major assault on the rights of people seeking protection. The dismantling of social rights for refugees goes hand in hand with the expansion of Fortress Europe and efforts to gradually relinquish the responsibility for refugee protection (Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, Article 14) and obligations not least in the form of the Geneva Refugee Convention. The extreme right has succeeded in developing a dominant discourse that sees people seeking protection only as a threat. Unfortunately, even democratic parties have increasingly adopted this racist narrative for years. They thus advance processes of de-solidarization and shift the social discourse to the right. The payment card is nothing more than populist symbol politics serving racism and further marginalizes, discriminates, and controls those seeking protection. Integration looks different!
5. The introduction of the payment card is not inevitable. NRW has introduced an opt-out regulation allowing municipalities not to implement the payment card. Several major cities have already made use of this. But there is also resistance in Lower Saxony: although there is no opt-out regulation there, the city of Hanover has declared it will not introduce the payment card and confidently provides open resistance. The city council has declared by a majority and with the factions of CDU, SPD, and the Greens that the card will not be introduced because it is discriminatory.

We call on 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
• Antifaschistische Initiative Heidelberg
• Asylarbeitskreis Heidelberg e.V.
• Stop Payment Card! Heidelberg and Rhein-Neckar
• Chancen gestalten Heidelberg e.V.
• DIE ZEP
• FLINTA* KunstZimmer
• Frauen helfen Frauen e.V. Heidelberg
• Internationales Frauen- und Familienzentrum Heidelberg e.V.
• linksjugend ['solid] Heidelberg
• Schülis gegen Rechts Heidelberg
• Seebrücke Heidelberg
• Sozialistische Jugend – Die Falken Unterbezirk Heidelberg