With all the people they aren’t willing to deport, and all the current discussion around the development of a humane immigration policy, it seems amazing that the Justice Department won’t grant asylum to a German family that moved from Germany to the U.S. (legally) to avoid religious prosecution.  In Germany, it is illegal for parents to homeschool their children, and parents who do so based on their religious beliefs face fines and criminal prosecution.   According to the UK’s Daily Mail Online:

When they took their three oldest children out of school in 2006, police showed up at their house within 24 hours, only leaving after a group of supporters showed up and organized a quick protest.

But their legal troubles were just beginning. Germany began fining the family, ultimately racking up a bill of more than 7,000 Euros ($9,000).

After they fled to the United States in 2010, the Romeike family initially were granted political asylum and found a home in Tennessee. They had a sixth child. But then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appealed the asylum decision in 2012.

The Romeike family came to the U.S. believing this country to be the birthplace and permanent home of religious freedom.  It seems that the Justice Department has a different interpretation of what we stand for as a nation.  Do we, or do we not stand for religious freedom?  If not, what have we become as a nation?

About The Author

Mark was a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, and served as the national coordinator. He left the organization to work more broadly on expanding the self-governance movement beyond the partisan divide. Mark appears regularly on television in outlets as diverse as MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC. He’s highly sought after for the tea party perspective from print and electronic media outlets, from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Examiner, Politico and the The Hill. Mark blogs at MarkMeckler.com, and his opinion editorials regularly run in many of the leading political newspapers both on and offline. Mark has a BA in English from San Diego State University and graduated with honors from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1988. He practiced real estate and business law for almost a decade. For the last eleven years of his legal career he specialized in Internet advertising law. When not fighting for the future of our nation, Mark is an avid horseman, and lives in rural northern California with his wife Patty and two children.

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