Germany limits cash benefit payments for asylum-seekers, critics say it's designed to curb migration

(13 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Leinefeld-Worbis, Eichsfeld - 24 April 2024
1. Various of asylum seekers Erinda Laca and her husband enter supermarket
2. Various of asylum seeker Jihad Ammuri shopping
3. Erinda Laca and her husband at the supermarket
4. Groceries on the transport conveyor belt
4. Jihad Ammuri packing his bought groceries
5. Payment card
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Jihad Ammuri, asylum seeker:
“I tried to buy in a shop and they said that this card is not our partner. You can't buy with it from here. And it's also not working in all of Germany. But for me, it's not a problem because I didn't come to Germany to buy something.”
7. Various of supermarket
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Erinda Laca, asylum seeker:
“There is half money and half cash, with half of the money on the card I can buy food and with the other half I can buy what I need for myself and my children in any shop."
9. Cashier hands over receipt
10. Asylum seekers leaving supermarket
11. Various of Thomas Drilling, head of the shared accommodation centre for refugees
12. SOUNDBITE (German) Thomas Drilling, head of the shared accommodation centre for refugees:
“The law allowed us to introduce a benefits-in-kind card, which of course doesn't make people happy. We were already aware that they weren't going to fall around our necks and say they were looking forward to this benefit-in-kind card. We just want to give them a bit of an impulse. You have to slowly learn that when you come to Germany, you have to take responsibility for your own lives. Yes, and we're making it a bit more difficult for you now. But we also have a solution. You are able to work.”
13. Various of Erinda Laca and her family at their accommodation
14. SOUNDBITE (German) Thomas Drilling, head of the shared accommodation centre for refugees:
“Especially in our rural area, asylum seekers are also dependent on buses and trains and you can only pay in cash. I like to pay in cash myself. And yet I also like both. We have many nationalities who have grown up with cash, they don't know how to pay by card. It's too modern for them.”
15. Various of shared accommodation centre
16. Jihad Ammuri brings groceries to his mother
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin - 28 March 2024
17. SOUNDBITE (German) Wiebke Judith, legal policy spokesperson of the NGO Pro Asyl:
“So the whole discussion about the payment card was started with very clear motives by the Conference of Minister Presidents. They want to deter people. And it has to be said quite clearly that people are coming because of civil war and persecution. They won't be deterred by a payment card.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Leinefeld-Worbis, Eichsfeld - 24 April 2024
18. Various of Erinda Lara showing her payment card
19. Various of Jihad Ammuri showing his payment card
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Heiligenstadt, Eichsfeld - 25 April 2024
20. SOUNDBITE (German) Dr. Werner Henning, District Administrator of the county of Eichsfeld:
“I don't want to annoy anyone. I want to encourage. Take your life into your own hands. And I seem to have managed that quite well so far.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Leinefeld-Worbis, Eichsfeld - 24 April 2024
21. Asylum seeker Jamileh Saquer unpacking groceries
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Jamileh Saqer, asylum seeker:
“Anyway, we don't care too much about money. We care about security, about a peaceful life for me and my son after what we experienced in the war.”
23. Timelapse from the county of Eichsfeld
STORYLINE:
When Erdina Laca goes grocery shopping in Eichsfeld these days, she pulls out a special payment card that’s for asylum-seekers in Germany only.
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