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Court denies US asylum to German home-schoolers
Source: AP
A federal appeals court has denied asylum to a Christian family that fled Germany so they could home-school their children, after ruling that U.S. immigration laws do not grant a safe haven to people everywhere who face restrictions that would be prohibited under the Constitution.
Many American home-school families and evangelical Christians have taken up the cause of Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, who faced fines and the threat of losing custody of their children because they refused to comply with Germany's compulsory school attendance law.
In 2008, the Romeikes moved from Bissingen an der Teck in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg to Morristown in eastern Tennessee and applied for asylum. That request was initially granted by an immigration judge in 2010. But the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned that ruling and the Romeikes appealed to the 6th Circuit.
On Tuesday, a three-member panel of U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled from Cincinnati that the Romeikes do not meet the criteria for asylum.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/court-denies-asylum-german-home-schoolers
FILE -- This March 13, 2009, file photo shows Uwe Romeike, top left, and his wife Hannelore, second from right, teaching their children at their home in Morristown, Tenn. A federal appeals court has denied asylum to the family that fled Germany so they could home-school their children, after ruling that U.S. immigration laws do not grant a safe haven to people everywhere who face restrictions that would be prohibited under the Constitution. (AP Photo/Wade Payne, File)
I saw this story earlier today but didn't have time to post it. Just did a little research, found this USDOJ article from 2005 that states:
" Asylum and refugee applications are both adjudicated under the same legal standard––a well-founded fear of persecution based on at least one of five internationally recognized grounds: race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. "
The NY Times profiled the Romeike family back in 2010:
Among European countries, Germany is nearly alone in requiring, and enforcing, attendance of children at an officially recognized school. The school can be private or religious, but it must be a school. Exceptions can be made for health reasons but not for principled objections.
But the Romeikes, who are devout Christians, said they wanted their children to learn in a different environment. Mr. Romeike (pronounced ro-MY-kuh), 38, a soft-spoken piano teacher whose young children greet strangers at the front door with a startlingly grown-up politeness, said the unruly behavior of students that was allowed by many teachers had kept his children from learning. The stories in German readers, in which devils, witches and disobedient children are often portrayed as heroes, set bad examples, he said.
“I don’t expect the school to teach about the Bible,” he said, but “part of education should be character-building.”
In Germany, he said, home-schoolers are seen as “fundamentalist religious nuts who don’t want their children to get to know what is going on in the world, who want to protect them from everything.”
But the Romeikes, who are devout Christians, said they wanted their children to learn in a different environment. Mr. Romeike (pronounced ro-MY-kuh), 38, a soft-spoken piano teacher whose young children greet strangers at the front door with a startlingly grown-up politeness, said the unruly behavior of students that was allowed by many teachers had kept his children from learning. The stories in German readers, in which devils, witches and disobedient children are often portrayed as heroes, set bad examples, he said.
“I don’t expect the school to teach about the Bible,” he said, but “part of education should be character-building.”
In Germany, he said, home-schoolers are seen as “fundamentalist religious nuts who don’t want their children to get to know what is going on in the world, who want to protect them from everything.”
The family has been here for some time, having left Germany in 2008. But it was not until Jan. 26 that a federal immigration judge in Memphis granted them political asylum, ruling that they had a reasonable fear of persecution for their beliefs if they returned.
In a harshly worded decision, the judge, Lawrence O. Burman, denounced the German policy, calling it “utterly repellent to everything we believe as Americans,” and expressed shock at the heavy fines and other penalties the government has levied on home-schooling parents, including taking custody of their children.
Describing home-schoolers as a distinct group of people who have a “principled opposition to government policy,” he ruled that the Romeikes would face persecution both because of their religious beliefs and because they were “members of a particular social group,” two standards for granting asylum.
In a harshly worded decision, the judge, Lawrence O. Burman, denounced the German policy, calling it “utterly repellent to everything we believe as Americans,” and expressed shock at the heavy fines and other penalties the government has levied on home-schooling parents, including taking custody of their children.
Describing home-schoolers as a distinct group of people who have a “principled opposition to government policy,” he ruled that the Romeikes would face persecution both because of their religious beliefs and because they were “members of a particular social group,” two standards for granting asylum.
The Romeikes had never heard of home schooling when they set out to find an alternative to the local public school in Germany, where their two oldest children — now 11 and 12 — were having trouble with rowdy classmates. The nearby private and religious schools, Mr. Romeike said, were just as bad or even worse.
Months of research followed: the Romeikes read articles, sat in on court cases and talked to other home-schoolers in Germany. Eventually they decided to give it a try. Working with a curriculum from a private Christian correspondence school — one not recognized by the German government — they expected to be punished with moderate fines and otherwise left alone.
But they soon discovered differently, he said, facing fines eventually totaling over $11,000, threats that they would lose custody of their children and, one morning, a visit by the police, who took the children to school in a police van. Those were among the fines and potential penalties that Judge Burman said rose to the level of persecution.
Mr. Romeike began looking to other countries, but his inability to speak anything other than German or English limited his options. Then, at a conference for home-schoolers in 2007, he saw Mike Donnelly, a lawyer for the Home School Legal Defense Association, a Virginia-based advocacy organization .
But they soon discovered differently, he said, facing fines eventually totaling over $11,000, threats that they would lose custody of their children and, one morning, a visit by the police, who took the children to school in a police van. Those were among the fines and potential penalties that Judge Burman said rose to the level of persecution.
Mr. Romeike began looking to other countries, but his inability to speak anything other than German or English limited his options. Then, at a conference for home-schoolers in 2007, he saw Mike Donnelly, a lawyer for the Home School Legal Defense Association, a Virginia-based advocacy organization .
I don't know what's worse: the Romeikes instilling loony religious BS in their kids or the German government wanting to take away their kids because of the parents' opposition to the local educational system.
My gut reaction to this story admittedly was: the USA has enough fundagelical crazies, and we shouldn't be importing any more of 'em. But then my belief in the 1st amendment kicks in and thinks it's bad that the Romeikes' lives are going to be ruined. But on the other hand, Euro law recognizes taht there is religious freedom then there's the real world as in this case in Switzerland where a court ruled that a Muslim girl is NOT exempt from school swimming lessons just because the teacher is a man.
Read the full Romeike v. Holder decision. The 6th circuit serves the states Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. Case is argued before circuit judges GILMAN, ROGERS and SUTTON:
- Ronald Lee Gilman, a Clinton nominee confirmed in 1997 and in senior status since 2010;
- John M. Rogers, a Bush nominee confirmed in 2002;
- Jeffrey S. Sutton, a Bush nominee confirmed in 2003.
This was a unanimous decision led by Sutton: "SUTTON, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which GILMAN and ROGERS, JJ., joined. ROGERS, J. (pg. 11), delivered a separate concurring opinion."
Contrary to what the conservative Christian media may be saying about this decision being from left wing activist court, the 6th circuit is actually right leaning: its chief judge Alice Batchelder is a George H.W. Bush nominee, and of all 25 judges, 13 are Republican nominees. Excluding the 9 judges on senior status, 10 of the 16 non senior judges are Republican nominees.
Love, Joy, Feminism blogger Libby Anne explains the HSLDA's fallacious appeal:
Note that asylum law does not depend on American constitutional rights. Just because you have a right under the American constitution, that does not mean you will receive asylum because your home country does not recognize that right. A prime example is the right to free speech. European countries tend to have a much narrower range of protections for speech, strongly limiting hate speech. Germany, for instance, forbids anyone from advocating for the Nazi party. Such a law would not survive a constitutional challenge in the United States. However, you cannot receive asylum in the United States if you are a Nazi sympathizer in Germany. This is because such a law would not be seen as “persecution” within the meaning of the asylum statute. Just as the Board of Immigration Appeals found that the Romeikes were not being persecuted because the compulsory attendance law was a law of general applicability to all Germans, no matter their religion or political beliefs, even so a generic “no hate speech” law under which pro-Nazi advocacy was banned would similarly not provide grounds for asylum.
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