Tag Archives: Homeschooling

In February of this year, I wrote about the Romeike family from Germany who were seeking asylum in the United States. They were being persecuted for homeschooling their children by the government in Germany and were in danger of losing their children should they be forced to return to their home country. Opening from my previous post: Holder’s DOJ: ‘No Fundamental Right To Homeschool’

Eric Holder is the most corrupt and slippery AG in our nations history. His DOJ has sued states, pollsters and businesses across the board, but nothing as flat-out Constitution violating as their next possible target: Homeschoolers. Caffeinated Thoughts has the story which stems from an asylum case filed by a Germany family, the Romeike’s, being persecuted for homeschooling. (Read: Romeike DOJ Merits Brief)

Excerpt from Caffeinated Thoughts:

…There are two major portions of constitutional rights of citizens—fundamental liberties and equal protection. The U.S. Attorney General has said this about homeschooling. There is no fundamental liberty to homeschool. So long as a government bans homeschooling broadly and equally, there is no violation of your rights. This is a view which gives some acknowledgement to the principle of equal protection but which entirely jettisons the concept of fundamental liberties.

Choosing the type education for one’s own child is pretty much one of the most basic fundamental rights any parent has. What this position says to me is that in the education ‘reforms’ we are going to be handed down by this President in his second term, homeschooling will be a moving target.

Fast forward to this week.

The family now faces this danger as the United States DOJ has denied their request for asylum. Todd Starnes reports at TownHall:

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama Administration’s decision to deny asylum to a German homeschooling family.

The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family deported.

An Immigration judge granted them asylum in 2010 after the family revealed they were facing criminal prosecution for homeschooling their children. That decision was later overturned by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2012.

The court ruled today that the Romeikes had not made a sufficient case and that the United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment.

“Congress might have written the immigration laws to grant a safe haven to people living elsewhere in the world who face government strictures the United States Constitution prohibits,” the court ruled. “But it did not.”

It would seem the courts did not feel the threat of the government in Germany potentially seizing this family’s children was a big enough red line of persecution. All of this despite families from Germany in the past receiving asylum on the same grounds as the Romeike’s. Starnes continues, emphasis added:

The court did rule that parents do have a right to direct the education and upbringing of their children. However, they refused to concede that the harsh treatment of religiously motivated homeschoolers in Germany amounts to persecution within our laws.

“Germany continues to persecute homeschoolers,” said Mike Donnelly, the HSLDA’s director of international affairs. “The court ignored mountains of evidence that homeschoolers are harshly fined and that custody of their children is gravely threatened—something most people would call persecution. This is what the Romeikes will suffer if they are sent back to Germany.”

The Justice Dept. is arguing that German law banning home schooling does not violate the family’s human rights.

“They are trying to send a family back to Germany where they would certainly lose custody of their children,” Farris told Fox News. “Our government is siding with Germany.”

Farris said the Germans ban home schools because “they don’t want to have religious and philosophical minorities in their country.”

“That means they don’t want to have significant numbers of people who think differently than what the government thinks,” he said. “It’s an incredibly dangerous assertion that people can’t think in a way that the government doesn’t approve of.”

In a nutshell: Citizen, you will do and think as you are told.

One has to take pause here and consider what is happening right now with education in this country and the Common Core Standards. These standards are essentially a stealth take over by the federal government of our schools under the guise of ‘higher standards’ and yoked to federal money in the form of stimulus dollars. Those ‘higher standards’ really translate to ‘everyone does it the same’. In effect, making sure the populace is educated the same, thinks the same and does what the standards tell them to — all guided by the governments hand. Note, that doesn’t touch the issues with data mining that are a serious issue in Common Core.

Homeschooling is also under assault in this country. Common Core Standards are leading the way to try to extinguish the rising numbers of parents making the choice to homeschool by invading textbooks used by homeschoolers and requiring the curriculum be taught in order to pass the standardized tests associated with it. Mind you, the curriculum is load heavy, leaving little room for parents in infuse real learning into their child’s education at home.

Further down in the article, this section frankly made the hair rise on the back of my neck as it mirrors what we are seeing in our schools right now. Emphasis added is mine.:

“If we go back to Germany we know that we would be prosecuted and it is very likely the Social Services authorities would take our children from us,” he said.

Uwe said German schools were teaching children to disrespect authority figures and used graphic words to describe sexual relations. He said the state believed children must be “socialized.”

“The German schools teach against our Christian values,” he said. “Our children know that we home school following our convictions and that we are in God’s hands. They understand that we are doing this for their best – and they love the life we are living in America on our small farm.”

Let’s break that down:

“teaching children to disrespect authority figures” or sometimes the opposite.
“used graphic words to describe sexual relations”
“children must be socialized”
“The German schools teach against our Christian values” or the government violates it.
All of these things are already woven into our schools today. Bearing in mind the disposition of this DOJ that homeschooling is not a ‘fundamental right’ and that they have just rejected asylum for a family fleeing persecution for homeschooling, how sure are we that here in the United States who homeschool won’t be persecuted by this DOJ and administration? Given the current political and education climate, I’d say all bets are off. Continue reading →