Biden Seeks to Deport Family Who Fled Germany 15 Years Ago Over Homeschooling Choice, Ignores Millio

[mountaineer]

Biden Seeks to Deport Family Who Fled Germany 15 Years Ago Over Homeschooling Choice, Ignores Millions at the Border Flooding In
Headline by Protestia; Original story at HSLDA:

Romeike Family Facing Deportation After 10 Years
2023 UPDATE: The Romeike family faces a renewed threat to their homeschool freedom.
HSLDA
September 18, 2023

The Romeike family was forced to flee Germany in 2008, because they chose to homeschool. Germany does not recognize the fundamental right of parents to homeschool their children, and only permits the practice in very narrow circumstances. ...

So the Romeikes fled to America, where we helped them apply for asylum. In 2013, after five years of legal battles and a growing public outcry, the United States government granted the Romeikes “indefinite deferred action status,” which allowed them to live, work, and remain safely in the United States without fear of deportation.

Then It All Changed

Then, in September 2023, the Romeikes were told during a routine check-in that their deferred status had been revoked. The family was given four weeks to apply for German passports, so they could be deported to Germany. The family had no prior warning, and was offered no explanation, other than that there had been a “change of orders.” 

In the 10 years that the Romeikes have lived peacefully in the United States, they’ve built a second life: they have two children who are American citizens, and two other children who married American citizens (one of these couples recently welcomed their first child).

Deportation to Germany will fracture these families, while exposing the Romeikes to renewed persecution in Germany, where homeschooling is still illegal in almost every case.  ...

[Kamaji]

[mountaineer]

There were several threads at TBR back in 2013/14 about their legal battle, among them:

Supreme Court Orders DOJ to Respond to German Homeschoolers' Petition

Team Obama wins fight to have Christian home-school family deported

DHS allows German home-schooling family to stay in US

[PeteS in CA]

Biden admin about to deport German migrant family after 15 years fighting for asylum?

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2023/09/25/biden-admin-about-to-deport-german-migrant-family-after-15-years-fighting-for-asylum-n580289

It may be a wee bit more complicated than that, but perhaps not much more. The Romeike family fled Germany in 2008 after authorities cracked down on the practice of home-schooling, and applied for asylum in the US. Initially, a judge granted their asylum request, but when the Obama administration appealed the decision, that started a long legal odyssey that may have come to an end late last week:

The family moved to the U.S. from Germany in 2008. Their application for asylum said they were fined by the German government roughly $9,000 after homeschooling their children, court documents show.

An immigration judge initially granted the family’s application for asylum. The U.S. Department of Justice appealed the decision, and the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals revoked the family’s asylum status, documents show.

The family, with the help of the U.S. Home School Defense Association, appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel unanimously ruled against the family.

“They have not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school-attendance law amounts to persecution against them,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the court.

The correct name of the outfit helping the Romeike family is, "Home School Legal Defense Association". HSLDA has been around for some 40 years, and they are not obscure, not amongst homeschoolers, not among educrats and union operatives who hate them.

Anyway, the saga of the Romeike family is far greater in time, acts of persecution, and court fights (in Germany) than the ~$9000 WBIR's article mentions.

From the HSLDA article linked in the OP article, https://hslda.org/post/romeike :

When Uwe and Hannelore Romeike decided in 2006 that God was calling them to homeschool their five children, Germany responded swiftly by leveling fines that exceeded the family’s income, forcibly removing the children from the home to take them to school, and threatening to remove the children from the home permanently. 

So the Romeikes fled to America, where we helped them apply for asylum. In 2013, after five years of legal battles and a growing public outcry, the United States government granted the Romeikes “indefinite deferred action status,” which allowed them to live, work, and remain safely in the United States without fear of deportation.

The Romeike family came to to US in 2008, near the end of the GWB administration. It was the OhBummer! maladministration that tried to deport the, and now, when they think no one will notice, the LIEden maladministration has renewed that effort to deport them.

[PeteS in CA]

HSLDA Files Asylum Application for German Homeschool Family

https://hslda.org/post/hslda-files-asylum-application-for-german-homeschool-family
November 17, 2008

Political asylum is available to people already in the United States who fear returning to their home country due to actual persecution or who have a well-founded fear of actual persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Homeschoolers certainly have a “well-founded fear” of persecution in Germany.

According to Staff Attorney Michael P. Donnelly, HSLDA’s contact attorney for Germany, “German homeschoolers, of which there are few because of the persecution, are fined thousands of dollars, sent to prison or have the custody of their children taken away. Many of these families have fled Germany when threatened with the custody of their children. Some have told me that they are willing to go to jail for their beliefs if they have to, but they will not allow the state to take their children. This year alone nearly a dozen families have fled this in the face of this harsh persecution.”

... In July of this year, homeschooling parents Rosemary and Juergen Dudek were each sentenced to 90 days in prison for homeschooling. They are appealing. Another family, the Gorbers, had their children viciously taken from their home in a raid in January. However, a family court judge on November 12 finally issued an order restoring custody to the family on the condition that the children attend public school and that the youngest son be enrolled in a playgroup.
...
HSLDA has been working to support freedom for homeschoolers for nearly a decade. Donnelly observed that, “While there are slight glimmers of hope, the reality for homeschoolers in Germany today is grim. Scores of other families have been fined tens of thousands of dollars with their bank accounts confiscated and other property seized—just because they homeschool. If that isn’t a well-founded fear of persecution, I don’t know what is. Many of these families have fled the country in the face of this oppression.”

[Wingnut]

Deport the ones who uphold our values and contribute to society. But let every invading illegal have free rein.  What a country.

[Fishrrman]

The real reason behind the deportation:
They are white Germans.

[PeteS in CA]

From https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=739122324924374&set=a.440067614829848 :

We just received news from ICE that the Romeikes are going to be given a one-year stay of deportation on Wednesday. This is excellent news! According to our friends on Capitol Hill, this outcome is the direct result of your calls, your petition signature, and your outreach to Congress on this issue. Now the reality is that until this is signed on Wednesday this is not guaranteed, but we do expect a positive outcome. We are sending our attorney, Kevin Boden, to join the Romeike family while they meet with ICE next week. ⁠
⁠
According to Kevin, “I spoke personally with the ICE officer in Knoxville, who told me we can anticipate them signing the order of supervision out for another year. And while we are very grateful for this news, we are continuing to advocate for a long-term solution for the Romeike family to allow their permanent stay in the United States.”