Come to the DEMO against the payment card!
25.01. at 2 p.m., starting on Old Synagogue Square (Platz der alten Synagoge)
- 4 min read
STOP payment card! Against social exclusion and racism, for a society based on solidarity!
Why are we demonstrating?
According to a letter from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Justice and Migration, the payment card is to be enforced throughout Baden-Württemberg against refugees in the asylum procedure and against those with an unclear residence status. 24,000 payment cards have now been ordered by 22 districts in Baden-Württemberg. These include Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, which has already informed refugees about the introduction of the payment card, probably on March 1st. This makes it clear: the payment card should also come to Freiburg. But we have to prevent this! Our fight against racism and exclusion begins in the fight for a democratic, fair and solidarity-based city. We have to organize ourselves outside of the parties that want the exclusionary payment card and thus racist conditions and ourselves from these politics and their representatives We call on the local council and representatives of the city of Freiburg to speak out against the introduction of the payment card and the associated further exclusion of refugees. We want to send a strong signal on the streets against the social exclusion and racism that the payment card embodies.
Our criticism of the payment card:
The payment card is right-wing populist and unconstitutional symbolic politics.
Cash withdrawals should be limited to a maximum of €50 per person; Transfers are only possible to a limited extent; Where, how and what refugees spend their money on is severely restricted by the card. Research by ZEIT ONLINE and FragDenStaat shows that when the minimum standards for the payment card were developed, they were deliberately directed in a direction that violated fundamental and data protection rights. The payment card arises from a migration discourse guided by racist stereotypes and misinformation; The ostensible goals of reducing administrative burdens and preventing foreign transfers cannot be achieved or do not represent a real problem. Rather, it is obvious that migration policy objectives are in the foreground with the payment card. The Federal Constitutional Court has already stated several times that migration policy considerations cannot justify lowering the performance standard below the physical and socio-cultural subsistence minimum. Nevertheless, the benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act will be further reduced at the beginning of 2025 and the payment card also threatens to push people further below the right to a humane subsistence level guaranteed in the Basic Law. The payment card disproportionately restricts the autonomy and the right to self-determination of those entitled to benefits and thus represents discriminatory unequal treatment.
The payment card is part of a process of progressive disenfranchisement of refugees.
The intensive interference in the social life of refugees was legally enshrined in the asylum seeker benefits and asylum laws. In addition to the residency requirement, refugees have to live in mass accommodation under sometimes catastrophic conditions, in very cramped living conditions, without adequate medical care; Adults are sometimes not allowed to work - all of this has been going on for years. And the very precarious lives of the affected refugees are getting even worse with the introduction of the payment card. The CEAS reform, which must be implemented nationally by June 2026, will further worsen the situation for refugees. The CEAS brings with it drastic procedural and social law changes for refugees, the consequences and effects of which cannot be foreseen at all. People are driven into lawlessness and homelessness. The misery of refugees in Europe will continue to increase. Let’s oppose this development and fight for an improvement in the living conditions of refugees in Germany and Europe!
The payment card threatens to be expanded as an instrument of exclusion for other social groups.
Once the payment card is introduced and accepted, there is a high probability that it will also be used against other population groups that one wants to monitor and discipline. The CDU and FDP have already called for the payment card to also be introduced for citizens’ benefit recipients. Research by ZEIT ONLINE and FragDenStaat shows that the state of Hamburg, which has already introduced the payment card, also wants to expand the payment card to all people who receive social assistance. Refugees, as the most despised population group and whose well-being the public is least interested in, are being used to test new tools that can then be gradually expanded to other marginalized groups. The racism fueled by politics and the media shows here its function of inciting various marginalized social groups against each other in order to prevent them from fighting together for their rights. If you want to counter exclusion and racism, you have to stand up for unconditional social rights for all. We have to prevent the payment card in its early stages!