Homeschoolers win U.S. asylum, now face deportation
Citing a European court ruling, U.S. immigration authorities are arguing in an appeal that a family that fled Germany and gained asylum in Tennessee claiming their government persecuted them for homeschooling should be returned to their home country....ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency) sought application of the Konrad case in the European Court of Human Rights that 'the public education laws of Germany do not violate basic human rights.' The ruling elaborated that parents had no right to direct the education of their own children because that was a responsibility of the state....
The HSLDA has documented that in 2003 the highest administrative court in Germany ruled in the Konrad case it was allowable for parents who travel, such as circus performers, to homeschool children. But homeschooling was not allowed for reasons of conscience.
The nation's highest criminal court said in the 2006 Paul-Plette case that the government could take custody of children whose parents wanted to homeschool for reasons of conscience.
I wrote about this family, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their five children, in the winter issue of the Les Femmes newsletter. To think that after winning asylum they now have to face the Obama immigration team is sickening. It is one more example of U.S. authorities putting court decisions outside the country ahead of U.S. courts. If ICE is allowed to prevail, will the education of children in the U.S. also be considered a "responsibility of the state." The federal government has taken over health care, the banks, large segments of the auto industry. Is the right to control the education of our children next? They will no doubt try to make homeschooling illegal because they want to control the next generation and they can only do that if they control the content of what is taught.
And isn't it ironic that ICE does nothing about the millions of illegals who are burdening our health care system, our schools, and our welfare systme, but will persecute this one homeschooling family. It's just one more example of something rotten in the administration.
Well said, well said!! Thank you! This government is the flat brown things you find on the ground in the cow pasture.
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