HOME-SCHOOLER FACES DEPORTATION

home-schooling family facing deportation

April 23, 2013

By Krista Kapralos

When Uwe and Hannelore Romeike’s asylum case is argued Tuesday (April 23) before a panel of federal judges, their lawyers won’t talk about poverty, war, or any of the reasons most immigrants cite in their bid to stay in the U.S.

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Instead, they’ll focus on a parent’s right to teach their children at home, which isn’t allowed in the Romeikes’ native Germany. There, home-schooling families face fines, jail time and even loss of custody if their children are not enrolled in a traditional school.

The Romeikes’ lawyers will also talk about their right to teach the Bible during the school day – an angle that has spurred more than 100,000 U.S. conservatives to sign a petition to let the family stay in Tennessee, where they’ve made their home since 2008.

“In Germany there is basically religious freedom, but it ends at least with teaching the children,” Uwe Romeike says in a video produced by the Home School Legal Defense Association, the Christian organization providing the family’s legal support.

Home-schooling families in Europe have become a cause celebre for some U.S. conservatives. The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom is working with two Swedish home-schooling families, including Christer and Annie Johansson, who lost custody of 11-year-old Domenic when they refused to enroll him in public school.

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April 16, 2013: Your letters, emails and faxes to the Swedish high court may be Annie and Christer Johansson’s last hope for having their son returned to them.

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March 4, 2013: Founders of Homefrontier, an online network of Christian homeschoolers in Malaysia, were recently interviewed on Malaysian radio.

German Homeschool Parents Appeal Asylum Ruling
February 22, 2013: ABC News reports on the Romeike’s political asylum case.