On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that it would grant temporary legal status to 472,000 illegal immigrants from Venezuela. National Review reported that the decision would give the immigrants the ability to find work and that it had the stamp of approval from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Mayorkas said:
Temporary protected status provides individuals already present in the United States with protection from removal when the conditions in their home country prevent their safe return. That is the situation that Venezuelans who arrived here on or before July 31 of this year find themselves in. We are accordingly granting them the protection that the law provides.
However, the Romeike family, who came to the U.S. from Germany, will enjoy no such treatment. They fled their home country because they wanted to homeschool their seven children. However, Germany is not a country that is friendly to homeschoolers. In a press release, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) said that the Romeikes had grown tired of the harassment and the fines they were subjected to by choosing to keep their children out of public schools that conflicted with the family’s values and faith.
When Uwe and Hannelore Romeike decided in 2006 that God was calling them to homeschool their five children, Germany responded swiftly by leveling fines that exceeded the family’s income, forcibly removing the children from the home to take them to school, and threatening to remove the children from the home permanently.
In 2008, the HSLDA helped the Romeikes apply for visas, and DHS granted them asylum. That decision was overturned, but the Obama administration granted the Romeikes indefinite deferred action status in 2013. Since then, they have faithfully reported to the ICE office in Nashville, Tennessee. They did everything by the book to enter the country and have complied with the law in order to stay in the country.
But on September 6, the Romeikes went for their usual check-in with ICE and learned that their situation had changed. They were told that they had a total of four weeks to arrange for passports and return to Germany. They have no idea why. HSLDA president Jim Mason commented, “The Romeike family should be able to stay in the United States and home-educate their children. America is a land of freedom and opportunity, and there are few freedoms or opportunities more important than the ability of parents to safely direct the education of their own children, without fear of punishment or persecution.”
Just so everyone is clear: 472,000 illegal immigrants from Venezuela, about whom we know absolutely nothing, have the right to stay in the U.S. and even get jobs. The Romeike family, who came here to escape what amounts to religious harassment and have complied with the law every step of the way, have to pack up and go home. It would seem that when it comes to immigrants, the Biden administration only wants the right sort of people to seek asylum in the U.S. Homeschooling Christian immigrants who are not guaranteed to vote blue don’t seem to fit the profile. Then again, we can’t expect the country to fundamentally transform itself, can we?
A petition to allow the Romeikes to stay in the U.S. can be found here.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member