Germany limits cash benefit payments for asylum-seekers as migration numbers increase

The new rule issues migrants a benefit card for local use, limiting cash withdrawals and banning international transfers.

Transcript

00:00 A payment card designed only for asylum seekers has come into force in Germany after the new

00:07 rule was passed by parliament last month. Migrants are not able to transfer money outside

00:14 Germany in a bid to prevent them from sending money to family and friends abroad or to smugglers.

00:21 I tried to buy in a shop and they said that this card is not our partner, you can't buy

00:26 from here and it's also not working in all of Germany.

00:31 There are half money and half cash. With half money that are in the card I can buy groceries

00:38 and with the other half I can buy in every shop whatever I need for me and my children.

00:46 Migrant advocacy groups have criticized the new regulation as discriminatory.

00:51 The whole discussion about the payment card was started with very clear motives from the

00:58 minister-president conference. They want to scare people and you have to say it clearly

01:04 that people come because of civil war and persecution, they can't be scared off by a payment card.

01:09 Especially in our rural area, asylum seekers are also dependent on buses and trains and

01:14 sometimes you can only pay in the bar. I like to pay in the bar myself. And yet I find

01:18 both sympathic. We have many nationalities that grew up with the bar, they don't know

01:24 how to pay cards, that's too modern for them.

01:27 Germany has been trying to clamp down on migration for months and this latest measure comes just

01:32 weeks before the European Union election.

01:35 [SWOOSH]