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TRANSCRIPT:
How often do we learn about deportation from the United States? That may be the case for a family who immigrated from their native Germany after facing potential criminal prosecution for their homeschooling choices.
Why did the Romeike family move to the land of the free and the home of the brave?
In 2008, Dad Uwe and mother Hannelore Romeike were spurred to seek asylum in the United States, where homeschooling has gained popularity in recent years—because this form of education is illegal in Germany.
The Romeikes had been subjected to criminal prosecution for raising their children outside the school system of the district of Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, where they faced $9,000 in fines, threats of a prison sentence and forced removal of their five children.
In 2010, U.S. Immigration Judge Lawrence Burman from Memphis granted the devoutly Christian family asylum in the United States. For the last 15 years, Uwe and Hannelore have lived in East Tennessee and homeschooled their children.
However, the Romeike family are now being threatened with deportation by the Biden administration, triggering outrage from advocates of religious freedom and homeschooling.
Despite residing in the United States for over a decade, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reportedly informed the Romeikes in September to prepare for deportation from their adopted country, with a month to obtain passports to Germany.
Not the first time to face deportation from the U.S.
In 2012, the Obama administration aimed to have the evangelical Christian family ousted from the United States. Former Attorney General Eric Holder at the U.S. Department of Justice pressed the Board of Immigration Appeals to repeal the decision to grant asylum.
“The goal in Germany is for an open, pluralistic society,” Holder’s Justice Department reportedly wrote in a legal brief opposing the family’s asylum. “Teaching tolerance to children of all backgrounds helps to develop the ability to interact as a fully functioning citizen of Germany.”
(Oh good. So that must mean there is “open, pluralistic” freedom in Germany to teach children to accept those who believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, right? Ehm, no. Though homeschooling in Germany declined with the passing of mandatory schooling laws in 1918, it was outlawed by Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1938.)
Following a lengthy legal battle, the Romeikes lost their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014. Yet due to grassroots support from non-profit organizations advocating for religious freedom, including a petition amassing over 127,000 signatures, the Department of Homeland Security announced that same year “deferred action” on their case.
Another Democratic administration wants to oust Christian family from America
Over the past 10 years, the Romeikes have continued to live in the United States. While Uwe is a pianist at First Baptist Church in Morristown and works as a piano instructor, Hammelore has since given birth to two more children—and two of the couple’s adult children are married to Americans.
During a routine check-in with the ICE, the family were told their status had been revoked and were given four weeks to apply for German passports, to deport themselves.
Speaking to Fox and Friends about the Biden administration’s decision, Uwe said that “They did not tell us anything. We don’t really know why. We wonder ourselves because we can’t understand.”
And in an interview with WBIR-TV, the father of nine homeschooled children added, “We don’t have any place to live there. I don’t have any work to provide for my family over there [in Germany].”
In defense of the evangelical Christian Romeike family
Kevin Boden is an attorney with the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HLDA) and the director of HSLDA International. Representing the Romeikes while speaking to Fox and Friends, he said that the family had “a well-founded fear of persecution based on their participation in a particular social category, that being homeschoolers.”
Boden added: “I can tell you today, I talked to families today that have fear in Germany, and the fight there, the persecution there, is very real today as it was 15 years ago.”
As a non-profit group, the HLDA has launched a petition urging the Biden administration to allow the Romeike family to remain in the United States—a country they have chosen as home for nearly 15 years.
The petition states that:
“[I]n September 2023, without any prior warning or explanation, the Romeikes were told that they are being deported, and have four weeks to obtain passports to Germany. Germany’s opposition to homeschooling has only increased in the last 10 years, making criminal charges against this family all but certain upon their return.
President Biden and his administration have the authority to direct the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to reinstate the Romeikes’ deferred status and save them from deportation.
Together, we can ask the Biden administration to do just that.”
The evangelical Christian family’s case highlights the pressures between American immigration policy, and the rights of individuals seeking asylum to pursue their chosen education form and religious freedom. The HLDA is asking supporters to reach out to their congressional representatives, and urge support for a bill from Republican Tennessee Rep. Diana Harshbarger that would allow the family to claim permanent resident status.
A country of two halves—of two systems?
After legally moving to the United States, Uwe and Hannelore had two more children, Sarah, 12, and Rebecca, 10. Five of their other children, Daniel, 26, Lydia, 25, Joshua, 23, Christian, 21, and Damaris, 18, were born in Germany, Bissingen, Baden-Württemberg, and are now facing deportation. Daniel and Lydia have since gone on to marry U.S. citizens.
The family’s appeal comes as record-breaking numbers of migrants from diverse nations, including those in Africa, Asia and Latin America, continue to be permitted to enter the United States via the southern border with Mexico.
This surge in migrants choosing to take, what is often a dangerous journey by foot or train to cross the southern border illegally into America, is linked to a multi-billion-dollar business network driven by Mexican-based “coyotes.”
The coyote assists a migrant in crossing the border for a fee, which could be anywhere between $5,000 and $15,000, and uses their knowledge of the passage from Mexico to the U.S. to profit from people hoping to start a new life in the shining city upon a hill.
As previously reported in a May 2022 article, both the coyotes and migrants cite the Biden administration’s “surge to the border” stance as an encouraging reason to seek asylum:
“In an interview with Univision, a group of coyotes responds to the question, ‘Is business booming right now?’ according to translated subtitles.
‘We just come here to earn our daily bread like everyone else. In all honesty, there are too many people [to help cross the border]. Believe me. With the benefits your new president [Biden] is now granting, people found the courage to come.’
‘It does [pay well], given the situation with people,’ another coyote said. Clearly, business operations are in full swing, and Biden’s open-border policy is even proving a handful for those involved in transportation logistics.
According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse immigration database from Syracuse University, over 2.3 million migrants have been granted Notices to Appear (NTAs) before an immigration court over the last three years—since the Biden administration took office.
NTAs are issued to people who arrive on U.S. soil, hand themselves into U.S. Border Patrol and claim asylum. Over 1.23 million of those NTAs have been issued in the Department of Homeland Security’s fiscal year 2023 alone, from October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023.
While migrants are flooding across the southern border, they might claim economic hardship or domestic violence for seeking asylum. Such individuals face seemingly minimal resistance from border enforcement security—if anything, a system of operation has been setup to facilitate the migrants into America as previously reported.
However, how many individuals, irrespective of their native country, are choosing to move to the United States for religious freedom—and would the current administration be remotely sympathetic to their cause if they happened to originate in a country with a comparably high GDP score?
Reality check: Although England renounced religious persecution in 1689, Protestants estranged from the Church of England still experienced political and social restrictions. We must never take for granted that the roots of America, this New World and Great Republic, represented a religious refuge that drove the early Pilgrim and Puritan settlers from England to the North American colonies.
For sure, those roots were interwoven with the seeds of ambitious entrepreneurial dreams and those seeking new economic opportunities in newly discovered land—underpinned by a virtually non-existent welfare state and a solid Christian moral framework.
But those roots of religious refuge are sawn deep into the foundation of American society, and any White House administration’s denial or rejection of those roots will backfire—one way or another.
AUDIO: Biden Administration May Deport German Homeschooling Family Living in USA for 15 Years