Posted on 05/15/2013 9:21:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama Administration’s decision to deny asylum to a German homeschooling family.
The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family deported.
An Immigration judge granted them asylum in 2010 after the family revealed they were facing criminal prosecution for homeschooling their children. That decision was later overturned by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2012.
The court ruled today that the Romeikes had not made a sufficient case and that the United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment.
“Congress might have written the immigration laws to grant a safe haven to people living elsewhere in the world who face government strictures the United States Constitution prohibits,” the court ruled. “But it did not.”
Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, vowed to appeal the decision.
“America has room for this family and we will do everything we can to help them,” Farris said.
The court did rule that parents do have a right to direct the education and upbringing of their children. However, they refused to concede that the harsh treatment of religiously motivated homeschoolers in Germany amounts to persecution within our laws.
“Germany continues to persecute homeschoolers,” said Mike Donnelly, the HSLDA’s director of international affairs. “The court ignored mountains of evidence that homeschoolers are harshly fined and that custody of their children is gravely threatened—something most people would call persecution. This is what the Romeikes will suffer if they are sent back to Germany.”
The Justice Dept. is arguing that German law banning home schooling does not violate the family’s human rights.
“They are trying to send a family back to Germany where they would certainly lose custody of their children,” Farris told Fox News. “Our government is siding with Germany.”
Farris said the Germans ban home schools because “they don’t want to have religious and philosophical minorities in their country.”
“That means they don’t want to have significant numbers of people who think differently than what the government thinks,” he said. “It’s an incredibly dangerous assertion that people can’t think in a way that the government doesn’t approve of.”
He said the Justice Dept. is backing that kind of thinking and arguing ‘it is not a human rights violation.”
Farris said he finds great irony that the Obama administration is releasing thousands of illegal aliens – yet wants to send a family seeking political asylum back to Germany.
“Eleven million people are going to be allowed to stay freely – but this one family is going to be shipped back to Germany to be persecuted,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
While the family awaits their fate, the Romeikes have built a new life in eastern Tennessee.
Uwe, a classically-trained pianist, relocated their brood to a four-acre farm in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains in eastern Tennessee. And with the help of a generous community, the family adjusted to their new home - complete with chickens, ducks and a dog named Julie.
“We are very happy here to be able to freely follow our conscience and to home school our children,” he told Fox News. “Where we live in Tennessee is very much like where we lived in Germany.”
Uwe said he was extremely disappointed that their petition to seek asylum was appealed by the Obama administration.
“If we go back to Germany we know that we would be prosecuted and it is very likely the Social Services authorities would take our children from us,” he said.
Uwe said German schools were teaching children to disrespect authority figures and used graphic words to describe sexual relations. He said the state believed children must be “socialized.”
“The German schools teach against our Christian values,” he said. “Our children know that we home school following our convictions and that we are in God’s hands. They understand that we are doing this for their best – and they love the life we are living in America on our small farm.”
Daniel, the oldest son, said he and his siblings have adjusted to their new home -- learning English and meeting other teenagers -- and of course -- the freedom to home school.
"I can learn a lot from my parents, much more than I could learn from school," he said.
Daniel loves to work with wood -- building sheds, and candle holders and designing contraptions. One day, he hopes to become an mechanical engineer.
But the teenager's fate is in uncertain until the courts rule.
"I hope this is not the end of the story," Romeike told Fox News. "If we get deported, we will certainly face fines and if we don't pay we might have to go to jail -- or worst of all -- they might take custody of our children."
Only deported? I’m surprised this administration doesn’t want them beheaded. It’s the Obama way.
Their big mistake, of course, was that they didn’t pretend, at least, to be illiterate - or better yet, drooling idiots - and get themselves on the public dole; then, at least, they would have been accepted for citizenship as future Democrat voters.
A long rap sheet would have helped them enormously.
They need to say they are Mexican Muslims.
Huh, on another note, 20 plus million illegal aliens, and what more can we expect than an attack on a small Christian family willing to integrate, follow the law, raise responsible children, learn english and become what has always been associated with being AMERICAN.
God help us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Instant citizenship, plus media adoration.
Communist Goals (1963) Congressional Record—Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963
#41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
http://rense.com/general32/americ.htm
Didn’t the bombers get here on asylem?
Just another case/example of the fact that justice in the US today is whatever some ambitious judge(s) want it to be. The justice system has been bloated with college trained ambitious fat cats who over the decades have take advantage of the Constitutional privilege to create lesser courts than the SC.
Not sure about that; I haven’t read anything which addresses the topic.
I do know that it’s far easier these days to get citizenship status if you’re an illiterate imbecile with a criminal record than if you’re an educated and upstanding citizen with a history of employment in a useful trade or profession - and most especially a White educated and upstanding citizen with a history of employment in a useful trade or profession.
If the couple had been a pair of Black criminals from the Congo with third grade educations, they’d have been in like Flynn. Future Democrats, see? That makes all the difference.
The mother had another baby (child number six) after the family settled in Tennessee in 2010. Why can’t they use the child as an anchor baby and use her citizenship to stay?
We made the decision to home school after our oldest within six months in first grade.
When he finished college with a BA and BS degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science,Medieval History and Latin.
Yes four degrees. Homeschooling works. Yes we can take credit for the ground work in supplying support, but he took the initiative and knew what to do with the opportunity.
And it is a highly rated and academically tough private college.
He wouldn’t have gotten there from public school only exposed to drugs and muggings.
And we are not “religious fanatics” just wanted what was best for the kids.
It really is that simple.
?Ah mehr i kuh... Aint she grand?
These fine folks should have gotten suntans then changed their names to jose, emilia, etc. and answered every question with jess
The mere fact that they are fair Europeans sealed their fate; even aside from all other issues.
People who didn't know I homeschooled told me all the time as my kids were growing up, "Your kids are so normal, I wish more kids around here were like that."
Does Germany allow muslims to have their own schools?
Could they be “deported” to a friendly country or Indian reservation?
So, the two senators from TN, Corker and Alexander -— can they do anything or are they ignoring this?
Let’s see..... Obama can beg Mexicans to come here and gain our system, prop them up with free everything, but a nice family like this gets sent back to Germany and it appears their children will be taken away from them upon their return?
Disgusting.
Because the "anchor baby" rules were abolished back in the Clinton Administration. The child born in Tennessee is a U.S. citizen, but that child cannot sponsor her parents for admission to the U.S. until she turns 18.
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