For many immigrants and asylum seekers living and waiting for their asylum cases to be adjudicated in Germany, the third largest refugee-receiving country in the world, the battle and trauma experienced in their home country was just the first. They now face a second battle attempting to survive Germany\u2019s discriminatory practices aimed right at them. <\/p>\n
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Leading Europe in its immigration policy, Germany has made it their priority to deter asylum seekers from choosing Germany as their destination. They\u2019ve passed several pieces of legislation in the past twenty years that makes living in Germany so unbearable that most immigrants wouldn\u2019t even consider it. The Sachleistungsprinzip <\/i>legislation is one of the most detrimental.<\/p>\n
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The Sachleistungsprinzip<\/i> legislation affects two groups of people during the first 36 months of assuming their particular immigration status: asylum seekers who are waiting for their cases to be adjudicated, and immigrants who have a Bescheinigung<\/i>\u2014a status that could be compared to permanent deportation proceedings. Holders of a Bescheinigung<\/i> are asylum seekers who were denied asylum but cannot<\/i> be deported\u2014either because their home country will not reissue a passport or because they have fled civil war. Those who flee civil war won\u2019t be sent back but generally don\u2019t win asylum in Germany, either. <\/p>\n
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Asylum seekers and immigrants in the above categories are required to live in designated refugee shelters and are not eligible for a work permit unless an employer writes a letter requesting that they fill a job position. The employer must then prove that no other EU citizen can already do the job. Effectively, very few asylum seekers are able to gain employment.<\/p>\n
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These immigrants survive only because they do receive some social aid\u2014no more than 207 euros a month per adult. However, the Sachleistungsprinzip<\/i>, or the principle of benefits in kind, says that asylum seekers should be paid their social aid not in cash but in kind. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Along with drug addicts and former felons, those who fall under the Sachleistungsprinzip<\/i> are some of the few welfare recipients that the German government doesn\u2019t \u201ctrust\u201d with cash. Additionally, their assistance is reduced\u2014they receive only 80% of the standard monthly welfare payment. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each German state can interpret the Sachleistungsprinzip<\/i> differently, which means states hold the right to distribute vouchers, chip-cards, food-packages, daily prepared meals, or ignore the legislation altogether and distribute cash. Though political pressure over the past four to five years has dismantled much of the system in Berlin, one of the more liberal areas of the country, chip-cards are still distributed to immigrants by two districts in the capital city. Other German states are not nearly as kind.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Receiving chip-cards instead of cash means that monthly purchases must be limited to absolute necessities. Chip-cards can only be used for approved items in stores that are equipped with computer systems capable of reading the cards. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of the private companies that runs the system, Sodexho, takes a percentage of every purchase used with the chip-cards, meaning that an increasing number of stores have opted out of the system. Currently, under twenty grocery stores in all of Berlin accept the chip-card, and only two pharmacies. In Germany it is impossible to buy any kind of medicine outside of a pharmacy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Perhaps even more detrimental than the fact that persons receiving chip-cards have to travel up to 25 kilometers simply to find a grocery store, they can\u2019t use these cards for public transportation to take them there. Chip-cards can\u2019t be used for any kind of service\u2014public transportation, internet cafes, libraries, or, most significantly, lawyers. Since the German government will not grant a state-appointed lawyer for the initial hearing, most asylum seekers lose their hearing and wait for the case to go to court.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to Peter, finding a pro-bono lawyer for the hearing is not even an option: \u201cIt is illegal for lawyers in Germany to work pro-bono. This is according to a law from 1936. In that year, the nazi government took away the right for Jews to work as lawyers. There were many Jewish German lawyers at that time. To prevent them from helping their fellow Jews, the Nazis outlawed pro-bono work. Nowadays, this law oftentimes goes against very poor people, i.e. refugees.\u201d <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The blatant racial discrimination that asylum seekers experience in Germany is what a small but committed group of refugee advocates, Initiative gegen das Chipkartensystem<\/i> (Initiative Against the Chip-Card System), established in 1999, is trying to expose and eradicate (http:\/\/www.chipkartenini.squat.net\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c[Asylum seekers in Germany] are treated like criminals even thought no on has said they\u2019ve done anything criminal,\u201d says Peter, one of the spokespersons for the Initiative<\/i>. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n While the maximum amount of aid an asylum seeker will receive on his or her chip-card is 207 euros a month, this does not guarantee that every refugee will receive the full amount. Germany\u2019s \u201cAsylum Seekers Benefits Law\u201d states that if a refugee comes to Germany in order to benefit<\/i> from social welfare, that person can be excluded from the system. This arbitrary distinction is made on the spot by an immigration or social welfare clerk. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to Peter, \u201cIt\u2019s completely legal to actually not give any money to an asylum seeker \u2026 and many of [the clerks] are committed racists! Now if you are a committed racist, why work in a place where you are always dealing with foreigners? Yet they seem to \u2026 The clerk need not procure any kind of proof other than to say that this refugee is trying to benefit from social aid \u2026 I know of a man who is receiving only 70 euros a month. It is simply not possible for him to survive on that. How does he do it without being criminal or working on the black market?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As Peter sees it, the German State intends<\/i> to criminalize asylum seekers and refugees: \u201cThe first privately owned prison opened last year in Hessen. Basically, when a prison is privatized, this means that a company involved is interested in more money, which means more prisoners, which requires more crime, which means more criminalization.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It just happens that Sodexho Deutschland, one of the main contract-holders for the chip-card system in Germany, stands to gain from the policing of asylum seekers. They cater food internationally for private prisons and refugee camps. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sodexho USA has similarly dirty hands. According to the Associated Press, in April of this year, Sodexho USA \u201cagreed to pay $80 million to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of black employees who charged that they were routinely barred from promotions and segregated within the company\u201d (http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/LegalCenter\/wireStory?id=709628&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312<\/a>). <\/p>\n <\/p>\n