1. People seeking protection in Heidelberg have a bank account like everyone else. With the giro account card, they can access their money. If they are not yet employed, they initially receive benefits according to the AsylbLG. These are to be transferred onto payment cards in the future, with which both cash expenses and transfers/direct debits are restricted. Goal: No transfers to their own family and traffickers, deterrence, reduction of “pull factors.” This background for the payment card violates our fundamental rights: the non-discrimination principle, family protection, personal rights.
2. The payment card is an infringement on personal rights. It restricts the freedom of refugees. Shopping in the stores they prefer may not be possible because the cost of setting up the card reader is too high for small stores. Transfers and direct debits require approval from the social welfare office. If special needs arise, an application must be submitted. 50 € in cash is an amount subject to 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 dependency of those affected by the office monstrous, also because transparency is lost for them.
3. The goal of implementing the payment card will not be achieved anyway. The 49/2024 DIW weekly report shows that overseas remittances from refugees are minimal, and certainly least from those receiving benefits under the AsylbLG, since these benefits (at most 441€) are below the citizen's income and certainly do not meet the requirements set by the BVerfG in 2012, which stated that the minimum existence should not be relativized by migration policy. Also, reasons for fleeing weigh heavier than the issue 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 refugees' social rights goes hand in hand with the expansion of Fortress Europe and efforts to gradually rid themselves of 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 determining discourse that increasingly perceives people seeking protection purely as a threat. This racist narrative is regrettably also being increasingly adopted by democratic parties for years. They advance processes of desolidarization and shift 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, allowing municipalities to refrain from introducing 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 it will not introduce the payment card and demonstrates open resistance with confidence. The city council has stated by majority and with the factions of CDU, SPD, and Greens that they will not introduce the card because it is discriminatory.

We call upon 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 chaplain)
• Ulrich Wohland
• Bernd Zieger
• Antifaschistische Initiative Heidelberg
• Asylarbeitskreis Heidelberg e.V.
• Stop the Payment Card! Heidelberg and Rhine-Neckar
• Chancen gestalten Heidelberg e.V.
• DIE ZEP
• FLINTA* KunstZimmer
• Frauen helfen Frauen e.V. Heidelberg
• International Women's and Family Center Heidelberg e.V.
• linksjugend ['solid] Heidelberg
• Schülis gegen Rechts Heidelberg
• Seebrücke Heidelberg
• Sozialistische Jugend – Die Falken Unterbezirk Heidelberg