July 2024 Update: Romeikes Need Your Support in Congress Now

HSLDA has made progress toward finding a pathway for allowing a persecuted homeschool family to remain in America, their adopted home. But time for completing the process may be running short, and we need your help.

For the past several months, HSLDA staff members have been teaming up with key US representatives to advance legislation on behalf of the Romeike family, who fled to America in 2008 after suffering oppression in Germany.

Last year, Rep. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee introduced a private immigration bill, House Resolution 5423, as a way to provide permanent resident status for the Romeike family. It has been assigned to the House Committee on the Judiciary and a subcommittee on immigration.

In mid-July, 16 members of Congress signed a letter to committee leaders imploring them to take action on H.R. 5423.

“We realize Congress has a budget to pass by September, and that there are major elections in November,” said HSLDA Senior Counsel Will Estrada. “So if these committees don’t act on the Romeikes’ bill before then, the window of opportunity may close.”

If you are a resident of Ohio's 4th District or California's 5th District, we urge you to contact your Representatives, because they lead the committees that are reviewing H.R. 5423. Even if you do not reside in either district, there is another important way you can help.

See how you can help

Working within the Law

Another deadline is looming as well. In the fall of 2023, the Romeikes were granted a one-year stay of deportation thanks to the advocacy of HSLDA and the support of members and friends. This grace period expires in October.

House Judiciary Committee members need to do two things to provide the family more time to make their case for staying in the US: 1) adopt rules for dealing with private immigration bills such as H.R. 5423, and 2) officially request that the US Department of Homeland Security provide more information from its own investigation into the Romeikes’ case.

Both actions would launch the process by which H.R. 5423 could be passed by the US House and Senate and then signed by the president. As a private bill, the measure would apply only to the Romeike family and would not affect broader immigration law.

It’s important to remember that the Romeikes have done everything in their power to comply with US immigration law, said Estrada.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike started homeschooling because they could not in good conscience send their children back to German schools, which teach values that contradict their deeply held Christian faith. So, after facing excessive fines and the threat of having their children taken by the state if they continued to homeschool, they fled Germany.

Upon arriving in the US, the Romeikes applied for asylum. This was granted in 2010, then overturned. Immigration officials said they would defer taking action against the family indefinitely. Throughout the years, the Romeikes complied with the law by doing regular check-ins with immigration officials. But in October 2023, they were told they had four weeks to leave the country.

In the Interest of Justice

According to the members of Congress who signed the letter to the Judiciary Committee, failing to grant the Romeikes a home in the US would severely injure the family.

“The Romeikes’ case is a compelling one such that deporting them back to Germany would result in their extreme hardship and injustice,” they wrote. This is because “the Romeike family’s ability to practice their religion would not be permitted under current German law.”

Director of HSLDA International Kevin Boden agreed with this assessment, especially in its characterization of how America places a much higher emphasis on parental rights and religious liberty than some European nations, such as Germany. America’s national ethos and jurisprudence recognize these legal imperatives as fundamental and God-ordained; they exist regardless of any proclamation or injunction by the government.

Not so in Germany. In that nation, “if you want to homeschool the way we do in the United States, it’s not legal”, Boden explained to the media last fall.

This disparity makes it even more essential that our elected officials secure the blessings of liberty for a family whose story so closely reflects our own national legacy.

As the letter to the Judiciary Committee declared: “H.R. 5423, in granting the Romeike family lawful permanent residence status, is directly in line with the tradition of our Pilgrim forefathers, namely the hope of religious freedom.”

* * *