Home-schooling family who fled to U.S. from Germany face deportation

The Obama administration is arguing in federal court that a homeschooling family from Germany should be deported back to their homeland, despite what they say is religious persecution. The German government prevented Uwe and Hannelore Romeike from teaching their five children at home instead of sending them to government-run schools, fining them and threatening to prosecute them if they don't obey.

When they took their three oldest children out of school in 2006, police showed up at their house within 24 hours, only leaving after a group of supporters showed up and organized a quick protest.

But their legal troubles were just beginning. Germany began fining the family, ultimately racking up a bill of more than 7,000 Euros ($9,000).

After they fled to the United States in 2010, the Romeike family initially were granted political asylum and found a home in Tennessee. They had a sixth child. But then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appealed the asylum decision in 2012.

The federal Board of Immigration Appeals sided with the government despite a 2011 policy that gives the government broad discretion to pursue only high-priority cases.

ICE would not provide details about the case, or its reasons for pursuing the Romeikes.

'We do not comment on pending litigation,' ICE public affairs officer Brandon Montgomery told MailOnline.

The Home School Legal Defense Association sued the US Department of Justice because a judge in that agency's Executive Office for Immigration Review was responsible for the decision.

A three-judge panel in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case of Romeike v. Holder on April 23.

I know I’m a little late to this thread, but just heard more details of the story on the news today. I haven’t followed it but decided to see if it was on FR.

I found the following article:

Then the Obama administration went to court to send them back to Germany.

Farris pointed out the asylum law allows a refugee to remain in the U.S. due to the threat of persecution for any of several reasons, including for religious reasons or being part of a “particular social group.”

But Attorney General Eric Holder’s official position is that the family doesn’t qualify, even though the Supreme Court of Germany already publicly declared the purpose of the German ban on homeschooling was to “counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.”

The Obama administration position is that it is irrelevant that the children were “bombarded with negative influences” in the German public schools that included “alleged teaching of evolution, abortion, homosexuality, disrespect for parents, teachers, and other authority figures, disrespect for students, bullying, witchcraft, disrespect for family values and ridicule of Christian values.”

The German goal, Farris explained, is “to prohibit people who think differently from the government (on religious or philosophical grounds) from growing and developing into a force in society.”

“It is thought control. It is belief control. It is totalitarianism dressed up in politically correct lingo,” he said.

But he said the what should be alarming for Americans is the “state of the position of our government at a very high level.”

He said the executive branch is arguing that it’s no problem to ban homeschooling.

“There are two major portions of constitutional rights of citizens – fundamental liberties and equal protection. The U.S. attorney general has said this about homeschooling. There is no fundamental liberty to homeschool. So long as a government bans homeschooling broadly and equally, there is no violation of your rights.

http://www.habermanfoundation.org/FillerUp.aspx

You are right. He will come after homeschoolers. He owes it to the unions.

After they fled to the United States in 2010, the Romeike family initially were granted political asylum and found a home in Tennessee. They had a sixth child. But then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appealed the asylum decision in 2012.

I guess the anchor baby card doesn’t work if you’re a white European, does it?

Let’s see . . . we have a person, aged less than 3 years, who was born in America and Under present case law (granted that it is of dubious provenance, but it has been accepted law for a long time, and affects the status of many, many thousands of people), the baby in question is an American citizen. It is impossible to deport the baby without causing chaos.
The parents of this American citizen

were initially granted asylum on grounds that they face persecution in their homeland.

want to be Americans, and Tennesseans in particular - and face persecution in their homeland for behavior which is legal under Tennessee and federal law.

are not in the country illegally,

are not alleged to be a ~~public~~ government charge. They can, if need be, find a support group to take responsibility that they do not become a public charge.

are not alleged to be a threat or even an inconvenience to society. They are Christians, in a society in which the Christian Bible is the best selling book of all time.

No wonder the Obama Administration wants to deport them. I started to label that sarcasm. It is astonishing, but that is not correct. In an administration which can promote the idea that Christians are threats to Homeland Security . . .

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HOMESCHOOL PING