AFA of PA ACTION ALERT
February 17, 2014
Issues
US Supreme Court Reconsidering Romeike Case
Details
In 1938 under Hitler, the National Socialists passed a law making it a criminal offense if parents did not send their children to government schools. After WWII, the law was never reversed to allow homeschooling, which had been legal before. Many stories are coming out of Germany of homeschooling families losing custody of their children. Some have been able to flee the country.
It’s again time to pray for the Romeike family who fled Germany with their children in order to freely homeschool them in the United States. They were originally granted temporary asylum by an immigration judge in 2010, but the Obama administration appealed that decision and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the immigration judge’s decision.
The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. The Court will meet again on February 21, and the cases they decide to hear will be announced on February 24.
HSLDA filed the appeal on October 10, 2013, and it first came up for consideration in November but was delayed when the Court ordered U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to respond in writing to HSLDA’s petition. In the response, Justice Department lawyers argued that Germany was not specifically persecuting homeschoolers, but enforcing laws that apply to everyone. Germany has good reasons, they claimed, for not allowing homeschooling, and the German government’s desire to “promote socialization, pluralism, tolerance and democracy” outweighs the human right of parents to decide how their children are educated.
Action Steps
HSLDA has called for us to pray that the Court will agree to hear the appeal and that God will move the heart of the justices in favor of the Romeike family.
