German Homeschool Family Denied Hearing By ‘Conservative’ Supreme Court

The well-known German homeschool family who was seeking asylum in the United States is facing deportation after the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it would not hear their case.

The justices rejected an appeal from the Romeike family, led by Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, who was being persecuted by the German government because they want to raise their children in accordance with their Christian beliefs, which is in direct conflict with the German public-provided curriculum.

The family moved to Morristown, Tennessee, after facing fines and threats for refusing to send their kids to a state-approved school in Germany, which is required by law in that country. If the Romeikes had stayed in Germany, the government would have forcibly removed their children from their custody. So, just as the Pilgrims set out for the New World in what was known as the Great Migration, to begin to settle and build a “Shiny City on a Hill,” the Romeike family fled to the U.S. in 2008.

Initially, the family was granted asylum in 2010 based on religious freedom grounds, but the Obama administration make a conscious decision to continue with their assault on religious freedom and appeal that decision.

“While this is the end of the line for normal legal appeals, we are not giving up,” Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association and lead counsel for the Romeikes, said in a written statement.

The family argues that German laws violate international human rights standards. But the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that claim and ruled that U.S. law does not grant asylum to every victim of unfair treatment.

According to Germany’s highest court, the country’s ban on home-schooling was created to make sure that religious home-schoolers do not become a “parallel society.” In other words, they want to raise and mass produce individuals that meet the state’s muster.

The family’s last hope was to plead their case to the so-called “conservative” Supreme Court, which is a joke by every measure. However, Monday’s decision by the justices not to hear the appeal essentially paved the way for the Obama administration to force the family to return to Germany. Ironically, at least 12 or 14 million illegal immigrants are living in the United States, some that send their children to public schools and some who don’t send their children to schools, at all. Yet, the Obama administration seems to have no beef politically with them, and picks a fight that strikes at the very heart of our nation’s founding.

“We will pursue changes to the asylum law in this country to ensure that religious freedom is once again vigorously protected in our policy,” Farris said. “I am just glad that the Pilgrims did not face this anti-religious policy when they landed in Plymouth Rock. After all, the Pilgrims left England to find religious freedom, but they left Holland to find a place that was both safe for their children and which provided religious freedom.”

“It’s a denial of the essence of America,” Farris told Todd Starnes. “The Pilgrims left England to go to Holland to seek religious freedom. They came here to seek religious freedom and parental rights for their children. Had this administration been waiting at Plymouth Rock, they would’ve told the Pilgrims to go back home.”