1. Refugees in Heidelberg have an account like everyone else. With the checking account card, they can access their money. If they are not yet in employment, they initially receive benefits under the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act. These are to be transferred to payment cards in the future, with both cash expenditures and transfers/direct debits being restricted. Goal: No transfers to one's own family and to smugglers, deterrence, reduction of "pull factors". This rationale for the payment card violates our fundamental rights: the prohibition of discrimination, protection of the family, and personal rights.
2. The payment card is an intrusion into personal rights. The refugees are harassed by it. Shopping in their preferred stores may not be possible because the small stores cannot afford the reading device for debit cards. For transfers and direct debits, approval from the social welfare office is required. If there are special needs, an application must be made. 50 € in cash is an amount at the discretion of the office. The allocation of the payment card itself is discretionary. This will not only further burden the administration but also make the dependency of those affected on the office monstrous, also because transparency is lost for them.
3. The goal of introducing the payment card will not be achieved anyway. The DIW's weekly report 49/2024 shows that foreign transfers come only to a very small extent from refugees and certainly least from those receiving benefits under the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act, as these benefits (a maximum of 441€) are still below the citizen's income and certainly do not meet the requirements established by the BVerfG's ruling of 2012, according to which the minimum subsistence level may not be politically relativized. Furthermore, reasons for fleeing obviously weigh more heavily than the question of benefit.
4. The introduction of a restrictive payment card is part of a large-scale attack on the rights of people seeking protection. The reduction of the social rights of refugees goes hand in hand with the expansion of Fortress Europe and efforts to gradually shed the responsibility 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 defining discourse that views people seeking protection only as a threat. Unfortunately, democratic parties have increasingly adopted this racist narrative for years. They thus advance processes of dissolidarity and shift the societal discourse to the right. The payment card is nothing more than 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, allowing 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 thus confidently offers 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.

First 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 chaplain)
• 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
• Socialist Youth - The Falcons District Heidelberg