The Sacramento Bee - Associated Press March 31, 2009
By ROSE FRENCH | Associated Press Writer
MORRISTOWN, Tenn. -- Homeschooling is so important to Uwe Romeike that the classically trained pianist sold his beloved grand pianos to pay for moving his wife and five children from Germany to the Smoky Mountain foothills of Tennessee.
Romeike (roh-MY'-kee), his wife Hannelore, and their children live in a modest duplex about 40 miles northeast of Knoxville while they seek political asylum here. They say they were persecuted for their evangelical Christian beliefs and homeschooling their children in Germany, where school attendance is compulsory.
When the Romeikes wouldn't comply with repeated orders to send the children to school, police came to their home one October morning in 2006 and took the children, crying and upset, to school.
"We tried not to open the door, but they (police) kept ringing the doorbell for 15 or 20 minutes," Romeike said. "They called us by phone and spoke on the answering machine and said they would knock open the door if we didn't open it. So I opened it."
Romeike, like many conservative parents in the U.S., said he wanted to teach his own children because his children's German school textbooks contained language and ideas that conflicted with his family's values.
He had to pay fines equivalent to hundreds of dollars for his decision, and he's afraid that if he returns to Germany, police will arrest him and government authorities will take away his children, who range in age from 11 to 3.
The Romeike asylum case is expected to go before an immigration judge in Memphis on Thursday, according to Michael Donnelly, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association representing the family.
Bernadette Meyler, a Cornell Law School professor who has studied differences in religious liberty between the U.S. and Europe, said she's never heard of another case like this in the U.S.
Ana Santiago, a regional spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agency is barred from discussing specific political asylum cases and doesn't keep track of the reasons asylum is granted.
Donnelly says the Romeikes saw more freedom to homeschool in the U.S.
"Germany sticks out in the midst of Western Europe for having this harsh repression against parents," Donnelly said. "They have this notion that homeschool creates this parallel society and they deem that as dangerous."
Lutz Gorgens, German consul general for the Southeast U.S., said he's not familiar with the Romeikes' specific situation but believes the claim of persecution is "far-fetched." He defended Germany's requirements for public education.
"For reasons deeply rooted in history and our belief that only schools properly can ensure the desired level of excellent education, we (Germany) go a little bit beyond that path which other countries have chosen," Gorgens said.
Germany's approach to homeschooling is starkly different to the U.S. and other European countries. Homeschool students have been growing by an estimated 8 percent annually in the U.S. and as of 2007 totaled about 1.5 million.
Only about 500 children in Germany are taught at home, experts estimate.
Romeike took his three oldest children out of school in Bietigheim-Bissingen in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg in 2006.
His oldest child, Daniel, had a health textbook that used slang terms to describe sexual relations - including the German equivalent of the "F-word." Other schoolbooks taught disrespect of authority figures and had images and tales about the occult, that included vampires and witches, Romeike said.
"It's really different in public schools today than when I was in public school," Romeike said. "They (the state) believe children must be socialized and all kids must grow up the same and act the same, otherwise they wouldn't fit in society."
German state constitutions require that children attend school. Parents who don't comply face punishment ranging from fines to prison time. Germany's highest appellate court ruled in November 2007 that, in severe cases, social services officials could remove children from their parents' care.
Not long after the Romeikes removed their children from school in September 2006, the principal talked to the parents about their concerns but urged them to send their children back to class. A letter from town mayor said the couple would be fined 30 euros per child each day they weren't in school. When the Romeikes didn't comply, police went to the home the following month.
Susanne Neib, spokeswoman for Baden-Wuerttemberg's Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports, said that when authorities learn of cases like the Romeikes, they visit the home to explain the benefits of public school.
She said the state tries to intervene against homeschooling very rarely, though she declined to estimate how often such cases arise.
The Romeikes went before a German district judge in 2007 to defend their homeschooling but lost, and higher courts refused to look at the case.
Donnelly's group helped the family move last August to Morristown, where the Romeikes say numerous other families homeschool their children.
Meyler said the U.S. is more tolerant of homeschooling because of religion's prominence in the country's founding. Germany is more concerned about educating students equally, she said.
"The idea is homeschooling might lead to the emergence of separate societies that would not share the same vision of the (German) state," Meyler said.
But interest in homeschooling hasn't died out. Elisabeth Kuhnle of the Network for Education Freedom, a German homeschool advocacy group, says as many as 50 families attended a recent meeting in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
The consul, Gorgens, and other officials maintain that most parents in Germany believe it's most appropriate to send children to schools.
"If you put that to a vote, I'm sure that the obligation to send kids to school would be overwhelmingly accepted. It's a popular thing, which does not say that every single parent is happy about it."
This article was found at:
http://www.sacbee.com/852/story/1742022.html
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German home-schooling family loses U.S. asylum bid
ReplyDeleteby Krista Kapralos | Religion News Service May 15, 2013
A German family seeking asylum in the U.S. so they can home-school their children lost their appeal in federal court on Tuesday (May 14), but their lawyers say they’re prepared to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.
The German government persecuted the Romeike family for their faith, said Mike Donnelly, a lawyer with the Home School Legal Defense Association, a religious organization that is representing the Romeike family.
“It is treating people who home-school for religious or philosophical reasons differently,” he added.
The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees. The U.S. grants safe haven to people who have a well-founded fear of persecution, but not necessarily to those under governments with laws that simply differ from those in the U.S., Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote in the court’s decision.
“The German authorities have not singled out the Romeikes in particular or homeschoolers in general for persecution,” he wrote for the three-judge panel in the case, Uwe Romeike v. Eric Holder, Jr.
Uwe Romeike said in an email on Wednesday that his family began home schooling to protect their children from bullying and teachings they didn’t agree with.
“As we were confronted with opposition to our choice we began to feel more and more that our faith required us to homeschool our children,” he said.
Uwe and Hannelore Romeike moved their five children to Tennessee (a sixth child has since been born) in 2008 to escape thousands of dollars in fines and increasing pressure from local police and education officials to enroll their children in school. All German parents are required by law to send their children to a state-recognized school, whether public or private.
The Romeikes are evangelical Christians, and say they should be allowed to keep their children home to teach them Christian values. Before they left Germany, the police forcibly escorted the older Romeike children to school one day. Other German families have lost custody of their children because they persist in home schooling.
An immigration judge in Tennessee granted the Romeikes’ bid in 2010, but the Board of Immigration Appeals tossed that ruling in 2012, arguing that religious home-schoolers don’t face any special consequences that aren’t applied to other families whose children don’t attend school.
The 2012 decision sparked an outpouring of support for the Romeike family among conservative U.S. Christians. More than 120,000 people signed an online petition urging President Obama to let the family stay. Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck described the case as evidence of crumbling religious freedom.
The Romeikes’ legal team plans to request an en banc hearing, which would present the case before the 6th Circuit’s entire 15-judge panel. Approval for such a hearing is unlikely, Donnelly said, adding that the Romeikes are already preparing to fight for asylum in the U.S. Supreme Court.
to read the links embedded in this article go to:
http://www.religionnews.com/2013/05/15/german-home-schooling-family-loses-u-s-asylum-bid/
Supreme Court rejects asylum bid for German home-schooling family
ReplyDeleteSarah Pulliam Bailey | Religion News Service March 3, 2014
(RNS) The Supreme Court on Monday (March 3) declined to hear an appeal from a family seeking asylum in the United States because home schooling is not allowed in their native Germany.
The case involves Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, Christians who believe German schools would have a bad influence on their six children. The family’s case became a rallying point for many American Christians.
As is their custom, the justices on the high court declined to give a reason for not hearing the case.
Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association that represents the family, said the group would pursue legislation in Congress to allow the family to stay. But the Romeikes will likely face deportation.
“The court’s decision is not a decision on the merits of the case — however, it was the last judicial hope for the family,” Farris said in a statement. “Even now, we have been working with supportive members of Congress to introduce legislation that could help the Romeikes and others who flee persecution.”
HSLDA helped the Romeikes leave Germany in 2008 after they were threatened with jail time and losing custody of their children. The Romeikes are evangelical Christians, and say they should be allowed to keep their children home to teach them Christian values.
An immigration judge in Tennessee granted the Romeikes’ bid in 2010, but the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned the ruling in 2012, arguing that religious home-schoolers don’t face any special threats.
The family lost their appeal in federal court in May 2013. The U.S. grants safe haven to people who have a well-founded fear of persecution, but not necessarily to those under governments with laws that differ from those in the U.S., Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote in the court’s decision.
“The German authorities have not singled out the Romeikes in particular or homeschoolers in general for persecution,” Sutton wrote.
In August 2013, the White House declined to comment on the case in response to an online petition.
In other actions, the high court agreed to hear the case of an Arkansas prisoner who was denied the right to wear a beard. The inmate, Gregory H. Holt, says his Muslim faith requires him to wear facial hair, but prison officials cite safety, hygiene and security concerns.
A federal appeals court rejected Holt’s case last summer, saying prison officials had made reasonable accommodations under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which compels the government to use the least restrictive means to limit religious freedom. The court is likely to hear Holt’s case next fall.
http://www.religionnews.com/2014/03/03/supreme-court-rejects-asylum-bid-german-home-schooling-family/