U.S. Supreme Court Denies Rehearing On German Homeschooling Case

PURCELLVILLE, Va., March 3, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ — On the morning of March 3, 2014, the United States Supreme Court denied review in the appeal of Uwe and Hannelore Romeike after years of fighting for asylum in the American court system. The Romeikes are a German homeschool family who fled to the United States in 2008 to avoid losing custody of their children to the German government. According to Germany’s highest court, the German ban on homeschooling is designed to insure that religious homeschoolers do not become a “parallel society.”

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

The initial immigration judge hearing the case granted the Romeikes’ request for asylum in 2010 on religious freedom grounds.

The Obama Administration appealed that decision and prevailed on two levels of appeals.

Prior to today’s denial, the Supreme Court had ordered the United States Solicitor General to respond to the Romeike’s petition. The case had also been carried forward for one week on the Court’s conference schedule—normally a sign of some interest in the case by the Court.

Describing HSLDA’s plans for the Romeikes, Farris said, “We will pursue changes to the asylum law in this country to insure that religious freedom is once again vigorously protected in our policy. I am just glad that the Pilgrims did not face this anti-religious policy when they landed at 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,” Farris noted. “These are the very values which our nation today has decided to abandon.”