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Homeschoolers win asylum, now face U.S. deportation
Agency wants European precedent applied in Tennessee court case
Citing a European court ruling, U.S. immigration authorities are arguing in an appeal that a family that fled Germany and gained asylum in Tennessee claiming their government persecuted them for homeschooling should be returned to their home country.
According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has lodged an appeal of Judge Lawrence Burman's grant of asylum to the family of Uwe and Hannelore Romeike.
WND reported in January when the federal immigration judge said in his ruling, "We can't expect every country to follow our Constitution. The world might be a better place if it did. However, the rights being violated here are basic human rights that no country has a right to violate."
The appeal, submitted to the Board of Immigration Appeals in Fairfax, Va., claimed homeschoolers are too "amorphous" to be a "particular social group," the HSLDA said.
Further, the agency claims, the U.S. "law has recognized the broad power of the state to compel school attendance and regulate curriculum and teacher certification."
ICE sought application of the Konrad case in the European Court of Human Rights that "the public education laws of Germany do not violate basic human rights." The ruling elaborated that parents had no right to direct the education of their own children because that was a responsibility of the state.
"In other words, it appears that ICE is arguing that U.S. judges should follow international law – rather than U.S. law," the HSLDA said in an alert.
"American judges should use American law alone in making decisions about cases in American courts," said Michael Smith, president of the HSLDA. "Polls show that Americans by an overwhelming margin reject the idea of using international law in American courts to decide American cases. The use of international law in American courts is a threat to American justice and should be opposed."
ICE argued that the U.S. government simply could ban all homeschooling – and that should disqualify the granting of asylum.
Read more: World Net Daily
The ruling elaborated that parents had no right to direct the education of their own children because that was a responsibility of the state.