German Homeschooling Refugees Can Stay in U.S. for Another Year

America remains a refuge for people seeking education freedom.

There are many reasons to flee a country and seek refuge beyond its borders; Germany drives some citizens into exile with a ban on homeschooling. Whether over philosophical preferences, religious conviction, or commitment to academic excellence, German homeschoolers either operate under the radar or seek refuge in countries with more education freedom. While plenty of Germans have run afoul of the country's ban on DIY schooling, the Romeikes may be most familiar to Americans. Last week, the family won permission to remain in the U.S. for another year as they raise their children by their beliefs.

"Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) staff met with the Romeike family and extended their permission to stay in the US for another year," Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) Executive Director Joel Grewe announced October 24. "This is consistent with the prior decisions of ICE going back to 2012. As a reminder, last year ICE informed the Romeikes—after the family had spent 15 years in the United States building a home in their community—that they would need to go back to Germany."

Education Refugees

As described by the HSLDA, which has championed their cause, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike started homeschooling their children (five at the time, with two more added since) in 2006. German authorities sometimes look the other way when it comes to homeschoolers, but the Romeikes weren't so fortunate.

"The police were knocking at the door, and one day they took the children to school, and the children were crying because the policemen took the schoolbags by force," Uwe Romeike told Deutsche Welle in 2009.

The family also faced "fines eventually totaling over $11,000" and "threats that they would lose custody of their children," according to The New York Times.

Soon, Uwe and Hannelore say, they noticed that the children forced to attend government-run schools (state-approved private schools are also permitted, but the Romeikes found them unacceptable) had become "quiet and more prone to crying." They also didn't like the curriculum content. So, with English-language skills, they moved to Tennessee.

Indoctrination Is the Whole Point

The Romeikes had run afoul of schulpflicht, Germany's legal duty to send children to state-approved schools. The intent, explains the country's Federal Constitutional Court, is to prevent "the emergence of religious or ideologically motivated 'parallel societies'" that disagree with prevailing ideas. That is, what at least partially motivates many homeschoolers in the U.S. and elsewhere—escaping indoctrination in the views of government officials—is exactly what Germany's laws seek to prevent.

German officials took John Stuart Mill's warning that "a general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government" and reinterpreted it as an instruction manual.

But not all Germans want to be molded, which is how the Romeikes ended up in the U.S. Fortunately, they found advocates here. Those advocates led them through the process of seeking asylum.

'Repellant to Everything That We Believe in as Americans'

As Katherine Mangu-Ward noted for Reason in 2010, the Romeikes received a sympathetic hearing from U.S. Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman. He wrote, "the religious beliefs of the Romeikes are being frustrated" and "they belong to a particular social group of homeschoolers who, for some reason, the government chooses to treat as a rebel organization, a parallel society, for reasons of its own."

"It is, in this Court's mind, utterly repellant to everything that we believe in as Americans," Burman added of the German government's treatment of homeschoolers on his way to granting asylum.

Since then, the Romeikes have raised and educated their children while waging, with HSLDA's assistance, an ongoing war with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The agency successfully sought to overturn the asylum ruling, but the Department of Homeland Security granted the family indefinite deferred action status. That allowed the Romeikes to stay, but they were not permitted to apply for citizenship.

In September 2023, the family was given four weeks to leave the country, only to win a one-year reprieve after a public outcry and intervention by Tennessee officials. The most recent decision gives the family another one-year extension.

That's a lot to go through to educate your children by your values and standards. But it's a fight with a payoff: After so many years in the U.S., several of the children are now adults and at least two are married to Americans. The two youngest, who were born in the U.S., have citizenship. By the time American and German officials finish doing their worst, the family may be largely beyond their clutches.

The U.S. Is an Education-Freedom Refuge

Unfortunately, the Romeikes aren't alone. German officials have seized children from some homeschooling families, while others quietly break the law or flee the country. Even as some European countries become more comfortable with homeschooling after forced experiences with the practice during COVID, state control of education remains baked into law in otherwise free-ish Germany.

"Homeschooling according to the Anglo-Saxon or French model is a bridge too far for most liberals in Germany," Thomas Clausen of Germany's Liberales Institut observed in 2020. "They are in agreement with large sections of society – and the Federal Constitutional Court."

But "large sections of society" isn't everybody, and dissenters continue to take risks and make enormous sacrifices to guide their own children's education. The plight of the Romeike family and of others illustrates the importance of school choice. This isn't an American concern or a special consideration for especially religious people like Uwe and Hannelore Romeike. A good many German homeschoolers are motivated by secular and academic concerns—a phenomenon observed in the U.S., where the movement has taken off as it has become more diverse. There's no singular philosophy or issue that drives parents to take responsibility for their children's education.

Last month, the Johns Hopkins School of Education Homeschool Hub reported that, after a brief post-pandemic dip, homeschooling is once again on the rise in the United States. "New Mexico is the latest in a long list of states—nineteen to be exact—to report increases in homeschooling."

Americans in most states are fortunate to have the freedom to choose from a growing list of education options. But not everybody is so lucky. Supporting educational freedom is just one more reason to keep this country welcoming towards legitimate refugees.