Home-schooling family who fled to U.S. from Germany face deportation: Parents face charges and $9,000 fine for taking kids out school as Obama officials prepare to send them back

A lawsuit against the Department of Justice will be heard April 23
Federal government based decision on an international law ruling
White House petition seeks 100,000 signatures in 30 days
Germany fines parents for home schooling and sometimes revokes custody
An estimated 2 million children in the US are home schooled

The Obama administration is arguing in federal court that a homeschooling family from Germany should be deported back to their homeland, despite what they say is religious persecution. The German government prevented Uwe and Hannelore Romeike from teaching their five children at home instead of sending them to government-run schools, fining them and threatening to prosecute them if they don't obey.

When they took their three oldest children out of school in 2006, police showed up at their house within 24 hours, only leaving after a group of supporters showed up and organized a quick protest.

But their legal troubles were just beginning. Germany began fining the family, ultimately racking up a bill of more than 7,000 Euros ($9,000).

After they fled to the United States in 2010, the Romeike family initially were granted political asylum and found a home in Tennessee. They had a sixth child. But then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appealed the asylum decision in 2012.

The federal Board of Immigration Appeals sided with the government despite a 2011 policy that gives the government broad discretion to pursue only high-priority cases.

ICE would not provide details about the case, or its reasons for pursuing the Romeikes.

'We do not comment on pending litigation,' ICE public affairs officer Brandon Montgomery told MailOnline.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike fled Germany with their five children because the government there criminalized home schooling. A sixth child was born after they took up residence and Tennessee and won permanent asylum on human rights grounds. The Obama administration appealed and seeks their deportation back to Germany

The Romeikes teach their five school-age children at home, including computer lessons along with reading, writing, math, history, music and other subjects

The Home School Legal Defense Association sued the US Department of Justice because a judge in that agency's Executive Office for Immigration Review was responsible for the decision.

A three-judge panel in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case of Romeike v. Holder on April 23.

Michael Farris, that organization's founding chairman, told MailOnline in a telephone interview that the even if the federal government doesn't believe home schooling is a human rights issue that qualifies for political asylum, it can still let the family remain in the US and home school their children.

'The attorney general absolutely has the discretion to let these people stay,' Farris said of the devoutly Christian family.

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'I really wonder what would've happened to the Pilgrims under this administration,' he said recently on the Fox News Channel.

Christopher Bentley, a Tennessee spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, said his agency was involved in the case early on.

'I can't talk about any asylum cases in particular,' he cautioned, 'but our office would have responsibility for initially determining whether they qualified for asylum in the United States.'

'We're the first step in establishing "credible fear," and then making a determination of whether they qualify for asylum in the United States. They have to claim that their government can't protect them from persecution because they're part of a specific group. That's the basis for any asylum grant.'

White House petition seeks asylum for German home schooling family

'We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the Obama Administration grant full and permanent legal status to Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their children,' the petition reads. If it attracts 100,000 signatures by April 18, it will trigger a response from the administration

At the point where the Romeikes were granted asylum, the Department of Homeland Security was off the case. But after the Board of Immigration Review heard the case and overturned the asylum ruling, DHS re-entered the picture, since it's the agency charged with enforcing immigration judges' decisions.

Farris has started a petition to pressure the White House to let the family remain in the country. It has attracted more than 21,000 signatures toward a goal of 100,000, which must be reached by April 18 in order to trigger a response from the Obama administration.

'Every state in the United States of America recognizes the right to homeschool,' the petition reads, 'and the U.S. has the world’s largest and most vibrant homeschool community. Regrettably, this family faces deportation in spite of the persecution they will suffer in Germany.'

An estimated 2 million children in the US are home schooled.

But the practice is illegal in Germany. An estimated 200 families teach their own children there anyway, even at the risk of fines, criminal prosecution and, in some cases, the loss of custody of their children.

Hannelore Romeike supervises one of her daughters during a reading lesson in their Tennessee home. The Obama administration seeks their deportation back to Germany, where home schooling is illegal

Germany made school attendance mandatory in 1918. During the Nazi era, that law was made even more restrictive to ensure that young Germans were indoctrinated with Adolph Hitler's national socialist ideology.

The German Supreme Court has ruled that it wants to 'counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies,' Farris explained. 'And that's a direct quote.'

'We want to give them a safe harbor. That's what asylum is for.'

That court ruled in 2007 that parents who home school their children can have their custody rights limited or eliminated entirely.

German families have sought refuge in both Canada and New Zealand in recent years, citing the same reasons as the Romeikes. Both cases were denied.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. Attorney General Eric Holder could intervene and allow the Romeikes to remain in the country on humanitarian grounds, even if the Obama administration doesn't believe home schooling parents should qualify for asylum as a matter of principle.

The school day in the Romeike household is a conducted around the kitchen table, with Hannelore making the rounds as her children study. An advocacy group sued the federal government over their deportation order, and a federal appeals court will hear the case in April

Federal law allows refugees to stay in the United States permanently if they can show they are being persecuted for reasons including their religion or their membership in a 'particular social group.'

But in its argument against the Romeikes' asylum, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement called home schoolers too 'amorphous' to qualify.

'United States law has recognized the broad power of the state to compel school attendance and regulate curriculum and teacher certification' along with the 'authority to prohibit or regulate homeschooling,' ICE wrote.

When the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned the judge's initial grant of asylum, it based its decision on a case where the European Court of Human Rights ruled that 'the public education laws of Germany do not violate basic human rights.'

A science curriculum is part of the Romeikes' home schooling curriculum, including access to a microscope and laboratory equipment

A science curriculum is part of the Romeikes' home schooling curriculum, including access to a microscope, laboratory equipment and other things they would have if they attended traditional schools. The German government forbids home schooling, and the US government wants them deported back to their home country

The Home School Legal Defense Association's argument is that the federal government should not substitute international law for US law.

'I think we have a really good case,' Farris said.

He believes there are likely only three possibilities that would explain why the Obama administration is working so hard to deport the Romeike family.

'It could be that the government is just anti-homeschooling, or anti-religious-freedom,' Farris said. 'Or perhaps they have some deal with the German government.'

'I don't know which it is, but none of the options is pretty.'

Piers Morgan Deportation Petition Gains More Than 30,000 Signatures

LONDON (AP) — Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for British CNN host Piers Morgan to be deported from the U.S. over his gun control views.

Morgan has taken an aggressive stand for tighter U.S. gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. Last week, he called a gun advocate appearing on his "Piers Morgan Tonight" show an "unbelievably stupid man."

Now, gun rights activists are fighting back. A petition created Dec. 21 on the White House e-petition website by a user in Texas accuses Morgan of engaging in a "hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution" by targeting the Second Amendment. It demands he be deported immediately for "exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens."

The petition has already hit the 25,000 signature threshold to get a White House response. By Monday, it had 31,813 signatures.

Morgan seemed unfazed — and even amused — by the movement.

In a series of Twitter messages, he alternately urged his followers to sign the petition and in response to one article about the petition said "bring it on" as he appeared to track the petition's progress.

"If I do get deported from America for wanting fewer gun murders, are there any other countries that will have me?" he wrote. source:

Pier Morgan debating GOA Larry Pratt.

IMAM OBAMA - Sympathy For The Devil

Let's let facts guide the gun control debate for a change

With the recent horrible shootings around the nation, the left-wing -- led by President Obama, some members of the Senate and House, and most of today’s media -- are screaming for new gun control laws.

But what would the consequences of such laws be?

A study done by the Justice Department in 1999 analyzed the 1994 "Assault Weapons" ban and concluded it did nothing to reduce crime or shootings. The Justice Department stated, “The ban has failed to reduce the average number of victims per gun-murder incident or multiple-gunshot wound victims.”

No wonder the Congress allowed the useless gun ban to “sunset” after ten years -- it didn't work, period!

Despite the fact we have these new incidents where innocents were murdered, gun murders themselves have drastically dropped over the last two decades. Why?

Noted gun-crime author and statistician, Dr. John R. Lott, attributes much of this to the increase in “concealed carry” permits issued nationwide to ordinary citizens, which now allow them to carry weapons for personal protection and the protection of others. These laws have reduced crime because potential perpetrators don't know who's carrying for personal protection. In fact, according to FBI data, U.S. murders dropped nearly 40% to 14,478 in 2010 -- a significant drop from 23,440 in 1990 -- even as the overall population grew by 24 percent!

This may be why Dr. Lott's most famous book is titled "More guns, less crime."

So, if Congress really wants to reduce crime and to stop shootings at so-called “gun-free zones” like schools, movie theaters and other places, maybe they ought to pass laws making it easier for citizens -- especially teachers and school administrators -- to get the training they want to be proficient in gun safety and proficient in hitting their target with a concealed handgun.

Most freedom-loving Americans understand that this administration and many in Congress are radical anti-gun members of the Left. They know America and our Constitution are much safer when the Second Amendment is in full force. And that is exactly what they want to change. They are in this for the power, plain and simple. They want control over every aspect in American life, and they are moving at break-neck speed to attain their goal.

Many nations that have given up their rights to gun ownership have suffered by the hand of their own government shortly thereafter. Over 170,000,000 (that's one hundred and seventy million) human beings have been slaughtered by their governments in the 20th Century after they gave up their guns.

WHY ON EARTH WOULD AMERICANS FOLLOW THIS PATH?

I pray they don't. That's why Gun Owners of America was formed to fight the anti-gunners in Congress and in every state house in the nation.

Tim Macy is the Vice Chairman of Gun Owners of America, a national gun lobby with over 300,000 members

http://gunowners.org/

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Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed...."- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787

On October 16, 1991, Hennard drove his 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the front window of a Luby's Cafeteria at 1705 East Central Texas Expressway in Killeen, yelled "This is what Bell County has done to me!", then opened fire on the restaurant's patrons and staff with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89. About 80 people were in the restaurant at the time. He stalked, shot, and killed 23 people and wounded another 20 before committing suicide. During the shooting, he approached Suzanna Gratia Hupp and her parents. Hupp had actually brought a handgun to the Luby's Cafeteria that day, but had left it in her vehicle due to the laws in force at the time, forbidding citizens from carrying firearms. According to her later testimony in favor of Missouri's HB-1720 bill[1] and in general, after she realized that her firearm was not in her purse, but "a hundred feet away in [her] car", her father charged at Hennard in an attempt to subdue him, only to be gunned down; a short time later, her mother was also shot and killed. (Hupp later expressed regret for abiding by the law in question by leaving her firearm in her car, rather than keeping it on her person. One patron, Tommy Vaughn, threw himself through a plate-glass window to allow others to escape. Hennard allowed a mother and her four-year-old child to leave. He reloaded several times and still had ammunition remaining when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head after being cornered and wounded by police.

Reacting to the massacre, in 1995 the Texas Legislature passed a shall-issue gun law allowing Texas citizens with the required permit to carry concealed weapons. The law had been campaigned for by Suzanna Hupp, who was present at the Luby's massacre and both of whose parents were shot and killed. Hupp testified across the country in support of concealed-handgun laws, and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1996. The law was signed by then-Governor George W. Bush and became part of a broad movement to allow U.S. citizens to easily obtain permits to carry concealed weapons.

Babylon Prime

Sunday, April 21, 2013