The Bundestag has decided on a nationwide legal basis for a payment card for refugees and asylum seekers. In the future, they should receive part of the state's living expenses as credit and no longer as cash.
Among other things, this is intended to prevent migrants from transferring money to smugglers or family and friends abroad. The parliament in Berlin voted in favor with the majority of votes from the traffic light factions SPD, Greens and FDP, and the AfD and BSW. The CDU/CSU and the Left as well as a Green MP voted against it.. Instead of cash, refugees should be able to receive payment cards in the future. Some states are already doing this, now the federal government is creating a regulation. A warning comes from the police union. The card does not solve the big problem of irregular migration, but it is a better way to make it better, says AfD politician Alexander Ulrich BSW, who said that the payment card is not a panacea.