1. People seeking protection in Heidelberg have a bank account like others. With the giro account card, they can access their money. If they are not yet in employment, they initially receive benefits under the AsylbLG. These are supposed to be transferred to payment cards in the future, which will restrict both cash expenditures and transfers/direct debits. Goal: No transfers to own family and smugglers, deterrence, reduction of “pull factors.” This rationale for the payment card violates our fundamental rights: the prohibition of discrimination, the protection of the family, and personality rights.
2. The payment card is an infringement of personality rights. Refugees are thereby harassed. Shopping in their preferred stores may not be possible because the setup of debit card readers is too costly for small stores. Transfers and direct debits require approval from the social welfare office. If there are special needs, an application must be made. 50 € cash is an amount that is 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 make the dependence 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 of all from those who receive benefits under the AsylbLG, as these benefits (maximum 441€) are still below the citizens' income and certainly do not meet the requirements set by the BVerfG ruling of 2012, which stated that the subsistence level should not be relativized by migration policy. Also, reasons for fleeing naturally outweigh the question of benefits.
4. The introduction of a restrictive payment card is part of a large-scale attack 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 free oneself from 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 succeeded in developing a determining discourse that regards people seeking protection only as a threat. Unfortunately, this racist narrative has increasingly been taken up by democratic parties for years. They thereby promote processes of anti-solidarity and shift the societal discourse to the right. The payment card is nothing but populist symbolic politics that serves racism and further marginalizes, discriminates against, 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 to refrain from introducing the payment card. Several major cities have already made use of this. But resistance is also stirring in Lower Saxony: even though there is no opt-out regulation there, the city of Hanover has declared it will not introduce the payment card, thus confidently resisting openly. The city council has declared by a majority and with the factions of CDU, SPD, and Greens that it will not introduce the card because it is discriminatory.

We call on the factions of the Heidelberg city council and the administration to reject the discriminatory and pointless payment card in Heidelberg as well.

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
• Chances gestalten Heidelberg e.V.
• DIE ZEP
• FLINTA* KunstZimmer
• Women Help Women e.V. Heidelberg
• International Women's and Family Center Heidelberg e.V.
• linksjugend ['solid] Heidelberg
• Schülis gegen Rechts Heidelberg
• Seebrücke Heidelberg
• Socialist Youth – Die Falken Unterbezirk Heidelberg