UPDATE: The Biden Administration rescinded a deportation order against a German Christian homeschooling family that came to this country legally more than a decade ago to escape persecution. Click here to sign up for Todd’s America First newsletter for original stories and breaking news.
Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, who live in Tennessee with their seven children, will be given a one-year stay of deportation on Wednesday, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association.
“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,” the HSLDA reports.
Todd Starnes Show listeners lit up the congressional phone lines demanding that lawmakers intervene and spare the Romeike family from imminent deportation.
On Sept. 6, 2023, the Romeikes were told during a routine check-in at their local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office that they had four weeks to secure passports and return to Germany. The news came without warning, and with no apparent cause or explanation.
“The Romeike family should be able to stay in the United States and home educate their children,” said HSLDA president Jim Mason. “America is a land of freedom and opportunity, and there are few freedoms or opportunities more important than the ability of parents to safely direct the education of their own children, without fear of punishment or persecution.”
The Romeike family decided in 2006 to home educate their children in Germany based on two core beliefs: a deep conviction that they were responsible to God for their children’s education, and a growing concern that the content of the German public school’s curriculum—particularly anti-Christian and sexual elements—threatened to harm their children. After enduring years of harassment, fines that exceeded their family income, and the forced removal of their children from their home, the family fled Germany.
In August of 2008, HSLDA assisted the Romeikes in securing visas to enter the United States, where they applied for asylum. The Department of Homeland Security granted the Romeikes asylum, but immigration officials overturned the decision. After five years of legal battles, the Obama administration granted the Romeikes indefinite deferred action status in 2013.
Over the last 10 years, the Romeikes have had to regularly report to their local ICE office in Tennessee, but have otherwise been allowed to live, work, and homeschool their children in peace. We are stunned to hear that the Romeikes have been ordered to return to Germany, and are actively working to secure their continued, lawful future here in the United States.