UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW

UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COURT
Memphis, Tennessee
File Nos.:

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In the Matter of

January 26, 2010

UWE ANDREAS JOSEF ROMEIKE

HANNELORE ROMEIKE
DANIEL ROMEIKE
LYDIA JOHANNA ROMEIKE
JOSHUA MATHIAS ROMEIKE
CHRISTIAN IMMANUEL ROMEIKE
DAMARIS DOROTHY ROMEIKE

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IN ASYLUM PROCEEDINGS

Respondents

CHARGE:
APPLICATIONS:
ON BEHALF OF RESPONDENTS:

ON BEHALF OF DHS:

William Henry Humble,

John F. Cook, II
Asslstant Chief Counsel

III, Esquire

ORAL DECISION OF THE IMMIGRATION JUDGE

The Romeikes are a family from Germany that arrived in the
United States August 17
waiver program.

2008, and were admitted under the visa

They failed to depart within the 90 day time

limit of that program.

The asylum application is based primarily on religion, but

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also political opinion and particular social group.

background facts are as follows.

The

The two adult Romeikes, Uwe and

Anna Laura, are both music teachers.

In the summer of 2006, they

made the decision to take their children out of school and to

homeschool their children.

The children involved in that

particular decision were Daniel and Lydia, who were currently in

school, and Joshua who was about to start school.

The adult

respondents are both 38 years of age, Daniel is 12, Lydia is 11,

Joshua is 9, Christian is 7, and Damaris is 2 years of age.
The reasons they decided to homeschool their children was
the fear that there were negative influences in school.

They

felt that school engendered a negative attitude toward family and

parents and would tend to turn children against Christian values,
as the Romeikes saw it.
Specifically, the Romeikes objected to the teaching of
evolution, the endorsement of abortion and homosexuality, the
implied disrespect for parents and family values,

teaching of

witchcraft and the occult, ridiculing Christian values and sex

education.
Although the Court is still not exactly sure what the
witchcraft and occult studies are 1 in German public schools, the
other aspects are fairly typical criticisms of public schools in
the United States as well.
The Romeikes decided to enroll their children in the
Philadelphia School.

The Philadelphia school was, at one time, a

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government sanctioned private school, but it no longer has

classes as such, it operates as a private Christian
correspondence school, assisting homeschoolers throughout
Germany.

Daniel/ Lydia and Joshua were enrolled in the

Philadelphia School.
Once the notification to the local school was received,
respondents began to get attention from the government of their
municipality.

They actually cancelled he enrollment of their

three children on September 15, 2006

Principal Rose came to visit them.

and on September 20, 2006,

Mr. Rose informed them that

homeschooling is illegal in Germany and on the next day after

they informed him that they were actually attending the
Philadelphia School, he returned and told them that the
Philadelphia School is not an approved government school.
October 9, 2006, they got a letter from the mayor informing
them that they would suffer a fine of about $45 per child, per
day, and

if necessary, the government would use force.

Romeikes ignored that.

The

On October 20, 2006, two armed police

officers came to the house to take the children to school.

This

produced a very upsetting scene for the children, the children

were crying and were upset, as the three children that were of
school age were herded off to go to school.

Apparently, the

police had no warrant or other authorization to do this, however,

the Romeikes were not aware that they had any basis to resist
legally, so they allowed the children to go to school.
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However,

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Mrs. Romeike retrieved the children at lunch hour.

On October 23, 2006, the police appeared in force this time
to take the children to school.

However, the neighborhood

apparently had been alerted and neighbors blocked the police from
taking action.

At that point, the government backed off for a

while, obviously they were not sure what to do.

Apparently these

situations are fairly rare and apparently had not occurred in

this town previously.
In December of 2006, the government began to get tough, they
informed the Romeikes that the children must attend school and
there would be a fine of about $672 initially, which would only
escalate in the future if they continued to resist.
Also the mayor informed them that in addition to the fines,
which would escalate, that they might lose custody of the
children.

There is a social work organization,

in Germany,

called the Jugendamt, which apparently means youth office in

German, and they have the authority to remove children from
parents under certain circumstances.
Respondents did go to Court over this and explained the
situation.

The Judge did not accept their explanation, he found

them guilty of not sending their children to school, which is a

crime.
Respondents took various legal measures over the ensuing
months and they were not successful at any level.

They faced

escalating fines which would eventually be more than they could

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afford to pay.

The applicant makes about 12,000 Euros a month,

and the family had been fined about 7,000 Euros at the time they
left the country and the fines would only increase.

If they were

not able to pay the fines, they also stood to lose their
property, but most importantly, they stood to lose custody of
their children, and that was their main fear.

There also is a

possibility that they could have been sent to jailr as these are
criminal statutes.
Michael Donnelly/ a staff attorney/ with the Homeschooling
Legal Defense, testified very compellingly.

He not only is an

expert who has made intense study of the homeschooling situation

worldwide/ but he in fact has actually spoken to nearly all of
the German parents who have been mentioned in the background
evidence/ and has virtually personal knowledge of their
situations.

He testified that there are very few horneschoolers

in Germany, and it is not allowed by law.

Further, the German

Courts are not at all friendly towards horneschoolers.

He

testified that there are associations, that exist in Germany/

about four of five of them 1 none of them very large.

The

problems started in the 1990's and they have accelerated as more

people, such as the Romeikes 1 found out that it was possible to
homeschool their children, if not legal.

Mr. Donnelly stated

that the fines could run from 50 Euros all the way up to 50,000
Euros 1 obviously a crushing fine,

that the Jugendarnt, would, in

certain circumstances, take custody of the children, place them

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in foster homes or orphanages, and send them to public school

from there.

Although some people have been sentenced to

imprisonment, not very many have actually served in jail.

Schmidt family served 14 days in jail.

The

The Dudek family was

sentenced to 90 days in jail, but they appealed, and apparently

their case has been remanded.

Once again the Dudeks and the

Schmidts were found guilty of not sending children to school, and

are considered to be school refusers.
testified that there are

~rivate

Mr. Donnelly further

schools, in Germany, but the

private schools must be government approved, and they must use

the government curriculum, which contains the items which the
Rorneikes find offensive.

Although there may be some places in

Germany where the law is not enforced at the local level, that is
not a legal place of refuge/ that is merely just a case of the
local officials not taking action, so there is actually no safe
place in Germany for the Romeikes, or people like them, to live
without having these problems.

Mr. Donnelly also testified that

if fines are levied/ which cannot be paid, property is attached

and seized and the Jugendamt does take children into foster homes
and orphanages.

He discussed the case of the Garbers, whose

child was placed in a foster home for six months, and placed in
public school, and they could not visit the child for six months.
Even more disturbing, is the case of Melissa Vusekros.

When her

parents kept her out of school, she was treated as if she had a
psychiatric affliction known as school phobia and she was
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actually placed in an asylum for the mentally ill while she was
tested.

This frankly is reminiscent of the Soviet Union treating

political opposition as a psychiatric problem, not only a human

rights violation, it is a misuse of the psychiatric profession.
He discussed the Gile family, who were att.empting to hide their
children, having an underground school essentially, rather than
something like the Philadelphia School, however,

the social

workers found them out and threatened them with a 75 1 000 Euro
fine, which is well over $100,000 U.S.

When asked if some people

were able to escape these penalties, Mr. Donnelly said yes they
have, but it is only because they have fled from Germany, and he
proceeded to list the various homeschoolers who have fled to many
other countries, both in Europe and elsewhere, to escape fines,
loss of custody of their children, and criminal sanctions.

When

asked whether there were any exceptions, he indicated the only

real exception would be medical reasons, that if the child could
be diagnosed with some psychological problem that would prevent
being around other children, it might be possible to homeschool,
although, in that case, what the government does is send in their
own teachers who teach from the government curriculum.

So even

if that would work, and there is no evidence, in this caser that

any of the children have any psychological problems, it would not
achieve the goal.
The scariest thing that Mr. Donnelly testified to is the
motivation of the German government in this matter.
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certainly

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would have assumed that the motivation would be concern for the
children.

We certainly do some odd things, in the United States,

out of concern for children, but the explanation is always given

that the Government has a right and an interest to look after
children in their country.
explanation.

However, that does not seem to be the

Mr. Donnelly described the judicial decisions, in

Germany, not so much being interested in the welfare of the

children, as being interested in stamping out groups that want to
run a parallel society/ and apparently there is a fair amount of
vitriol involved in this attempt to stamp out these parallel
societies.

I found that odd.

Another interesting fact

is the

fact that this law has not always existed in Germany, it was
enacted in 1938, when Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party was in
power in Germany, and it was enacted specifically to prevent
parents from interfering with state control of their children,
and we all know what kind of state control Hitler had in mind.
It certainly was not for the good of the children, not even
facial.
Now obviously Germany has changed since 1938.

Germany is a

Democratic country, Germany is an ally of the United States, and

Germany does provide due process of law.

However/ this one

incidence of Nazi legislation appears to still be in full force

and effect, and that is the situation that Mr. Donnelly
described, and the Romeikes fear.
On cross-examination, the Government attorney discussed,
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with Mr. Donnelly, his claim that there was a petition, before
the European Union, that was still open.

Apparently there was a

case that had been fought in the European High Court of Human
Rights, in Strasbourg, which was rejected.

Mr. Donnelly stated

that it was rejected on some unknown ground.

Mr. Cook, the

Government attorney, pointed out that apparently it had been

rejected on jurisdictional grounds.

Regardless of who is right

about that, it does not really affect the basic situation, that
the European government is no more willing/ than the German
government, to make an exception for homeschooling for religious
or philosophical reasons.
Oddly enough, although European countries are significantly
less interested in the family than we are here in the United
States, there is no other country, in Europe, that flat out bands
homeschooling.

Some of the other countries make it difficult,

but the problems that I have been describing, that were

described, by Mr. Donnelly, are largely restricted to Germany,
they are nowhere near as bad in other European countries.

In the United States, no state bands homeschooling.

There

has been a lot of litigation regarding homeschooling, obviously

the educational establishment, in many cases, wants to have
control of children.

However, the State Supreme Courts have,

without exception, ruled in favor of the parents.

reason no case has gone to the Supreme Court.

For that

However, in

Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), the Supreme Court made
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very clear how it would rule in this matter.

That was a case of

Amish parents who, for religious reasons, wanted their children

taken completely out of the school, after just getting basic
reading, writing and arithmetic.
that was no school.

That was not homeschooling;

And in that case, the Supreme Court found

that there was a fundamental right of a parent to establish a

home and bring up the children and worship God according to the
dictates of his own conscious.
This is a central right, in America.

Justice Brandeis

described it as part of the greater right, the right to be let

alone, that the Government does not own people, that people
should control the Government.

So, in the United States,

obviously, the Romeikes would have no problem with their

homeschooling.
However, our Constitution is not in effect everywhere in the
world.

Maybe the world would be a better place if it were, but

it is not, and we do not necessarily have any right to expect

other countries to do exactly the way we do in everything.

It is

not just the homeschooling, religion is not free in other

countries, the United Kingdom, obviously, has an established
religion, which is prohibited by our Constitution, but is central
to theirs, it is not an unfree country, the right to freedom of
speech, that we take for granted, is not nearly as strong, in the
United Kingdom, or other parts of Europe, many things that we
would consider to be perfectly acceptable and protected are not
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protected, and that is not necessarily persecution.

ASYLUM LAW
To qualify for asylum, pursuant to Section 208 of the Act,
the applicant must show that he is a refugee within the meaning
of Section 101(a) (42) (A) of the Act; that is that he suffered
past persecution, or that he has a well-founded fear of future
persecution in his country, on account of race, religion,
nationality, membership in a particular social group or political
opinion.

INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421

(1987).

To qualify for withholding of removal, under Section

241(b) (3) of the Act,

the applicant must show a clear probability

that his life or freedom would be threatened on account of one of

those factors.

This is a higher burden of proof than for asylum.

The applicant is not applying for Convention against Torture

protection.
FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
First of all, as to credibility, I find that the Romeikes,
and Mr. Donnelly, and all of their evidence is entirely credible
and believable.

They are clearly honest and decent people.

Mr.

Donnelly, although he certainly is a partisan in this dispute,

has been a highly credible expert witness, and the Court was very
impressed with his testimony.
As to what happened to the respondents,
find that it is past persecution.

in Germany, I do not

This Court sits in the Sixth

Circuit and the mistreatment that they suffered/ as scary as it

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might be, certainly does not rise to the level of persecution.

See Ali v. Ashcroft, 366 F.3d 407

(6th Cir. 2004).

So no

presumption arises, respondents have to demonstrate that they

have a well-founded fear of persecution/ or a likelihood of
persecution, to qualify for asylum or withholding of removal.
As I stated, persecution is an extreme concept that normally
does not include harassment, discrimination, or similar things/
as morally reprehensible/ as that may be.

See Sako v. Gonzales,

434 F.3d 857 (6th Cir. 2006).

Normally economic deprivation, and employment discrimination
fall short of persecution.
1993).

Matter of H-M-, 20 I&N Dec. 683 (BIA

However, severe economic deprivation, which constitutes a

threat to the life or freedom of the applicant, would be

persecution.

Kovac v. INS, 407 F.2d 102 (9th Cir. 1969).

The central issue,

in this case, is whether this situation,

where a family is denied the right to homeschool their children,

denied the right to educate their children in their religious
faith, and in their way of thinking, would necessarily be
persecution under the Act.
Respondents' counsel argues that there are three factors
which constitute a nexus to the factors for which asylum can be
granted.

Those factors are political opinion, religion and

membership in a particular social group.

As to political opinion, I do not really see a political
opinion here.

Obviously any opinion could be a political

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opinion, if you look at it that way, however, applicant and his

family have never been involved in any kind of political
organization, they have never taken a formal stand on anything,
other than the homeschooling, they have never spoken out and I do
not believe there is any political opinion in this case.
As to religion, the Government attorney argues that their
religion is a bit on the vague side.

They do not appear to

belong to any particular church whose rigid doctrines they are

attempting to enforce.

In fact/ almost all Christians, in

Germany, do send their children to public school, or at least

government private schools.
to his religious beliefs.

Applicant has been somewhat vague as

He has not really identified a

denomination that he belongs to.

Nonetheless/ there is no way

the Court can look.at this record and say the Romeikes do not
have a religion.

They clearly have a religion.

It may be vague

and unformed in some aspects, but it is quite specific in other

aspects.

Specifically the raising of their children, and Mr.

Romeike made it very clear that this is not just his opinion,
that he feels this is God's opinion, that he wants to raise his
family and also his wife wants to raise the family,
with God's wishes as they understand them.

in accordance

There is no religious

test, in the United States, and this Court is not going to have a
religious test.

There is certainly no reason to believe that the

religious beliefs, that the Romeikes have, are anything other

than entirely genuine and they certainly seem the basis of a
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problem here.

However,

their religion?

is the government attempting to suppress

Not really, the government is not acting against

their religion, the government is only acting against their

activities, which are very simple, not sending their children to
school.

The government is not trying to overcome their religious

beliefs, however, the government is attempting to circumscribe

their religious beliefs, and if the Romeikes remained in Germany,
they would not be able to exercise their religion as they see it.
As to particular social group, initially I did not see that
either.

However, after listening to Mr. Donnelly's testimony, it

does appear that there is animus and vitriol involved here, that
the government of Germany really resents the homeschoolers, not
just because they are not sending the children to school, but
because they constitute a group that the government, for some
unknown reason, wishes to suppress.

do not attempt to

understand exactly what the government would mean by suppressing

a parallel society, because it is so silly, obviously there are
parallel societies in Germany, as everywhere.

There are

different ethnic groups, there are different religions, there is

a large Turkish population, in Germany, that has been there many
generations.

Clearly they are somewhat of an alternate society

than made of Christian Germans.

Yet, for some reason the

government is not focused on that, the government is attempting

to enforce this Nazi era law against people that it purely seems
to detest because of their desire to keep their children out of

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school.
A problem with finding a particular social group is that
whatever this particular social group is, parents who choose to
homeschool, or however you define it, do not have any social
visibility.

There is no way you could tell a homeschoolers from

an un-homeschooler walking the street.

Therefore, under the

Board's case law this would not constitute a particular social

group for that reason.
However, the Board's social visibility standard has been
harshly criticized in the Seventh Circuit, which held that it is
actually nonsensical.

I certainly do not think it is

nonsensical/ but the Seventh Circuit does.

The Sixth Circuit, in

which we sit, has never specifically impeached the social

visibility standard, however, in a very recent case, Al-Ghorbani
v. Holder, 585 F.3d 980

(6th Cir. 2009), the Sixth Circuit held

that membership in a group opposing the repressive and

discriminating customs governing marriage, in Yemen, would be
considered to be a particular social group.
Circuit, as I

Now the Sixth

stated, did not really address the social

visibility issue/ although clearly, in the Al-Ghorbani case

there was no social visibility, so it does appear that in the

Sixth Circuit, whether or not it has actually followed the
Seventh Circuit all the way, the Sixth Circuit certainly believes
that there are particular social groups that do not have social
visibility.
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Since the group of homeschoolers, that respondents belong

to, has been fined,

imprisoned, had the custody of their children

taken away from them,

in case after case after case, and since

there actually seems to be a desire to overcome something, in the

homeschooling movement,

even though the Court cannot really

understand what that might be, I do find that the homeschoolers

are a particular social group for the purpose of asylum law, in
the Sixth Circuit.

Currently it more than meets all the

requirements set out in Al-Ghorbani.

In fact, Al-Ghorbani was

largely a personal situation involving a particular marriage,

whereas in this case we are dealing with principle and opposition
to the government policy.
So, therefore, although I do not find that there is a
political opinion in this case, I do find that the religious
beliefs of the Rorneikes are being frustrated, and the practice of
their religion will not be permitted under current German law,
dealing with homeschooling, and also I find that they belong to a
particular social group of horneschoolers who, for some reason,
the government chooses to treat as a rebel organization, a
parallel society, for reasons of its own.
As I stated above,

this is not traditional German doctrine,

this is Nazi doctrine, and it is 1 in this Court's mind, utterly

repellant to everything that we believe in as Americans.
Religious freedom is in many ways the most basic freedom in
this country/ certainly most of the original refugees that came
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to the United States, in colonial times, and in the early days of

the republic, were religious refugees, many of them from Germany,
such as the Amish and the Mennonites and many other groups and,
therefore,

I find that it is not just a question of enforcing our

Constitution on a foreign country, but rather the rights that are

being violated in this case are basic to humanity, they are basic
human rights which no country has a right to violate, even a
country that is in many ways a good country! such as Germany.
Therefore, I find that respondents do have a well-founded
fear of persecution if they returned to Germany.

Although the

fines could be considered to be not severe enough to be

persecution, it does appear that the fines are constantly
increased to the point where they cannot be paid, and that would
destroy the economic life of the Romeikes.

The possibility that

the children could be taken away from them, I find,

persecution.

to be

I think most parents would rather serve two or

three years in jail than to lose custody of their children during

their minority.

So the loss of custody is a very scary sanction,

which is persecution.

Then there is a possibility of jail as

well, although it has not been imposed in too many cases, partly
because people have fled the country.

The very fact that some

many of the homeschoolers have fled the country, after taking the
legal system in Germany as far as they could, is certainly proof
that this is no frivolous position.
themselves.

The Romeikes have uprooted

They have not moved from a third world, they have

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moved from a country just as wealthy as the United States, with a

very nice welfare system, free medical care, many things that
some people think we need in this country.

But if Germany is not

willing to let them follow their religion, not willing to let

them raise their children/ then the United States should serve as
a place of refuge for the applicants.
There is nothing in the exercise of discretion that would
bar asylum to the applicants.
and there are no problems.

The biometrics have been checked

Therefore, the Court will grant

asylum in the exercise of discretion to Mr. Romeike and/ as

derivatives, to his wife and children.
In the light of an asylum grantr I am not going to make any
ruling on withholding of removal.
The Court's orders are as follows:
(1) Asylum is granted to all respondentsi
(2) any order of removal that has been entered by the
Department of Homeland Security is vacatedi
(3) these proceedings will be terminated.

LAWRENCE 0. BURMAN
United States Immigration Judge

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CERTIFICATE PAGE

hereby certify that

the attached proceeding before

JUDGE LAWRENCE 0. BURMAN, in the matter of:

UWE ANDREAS JOSEF ROMEIKE,
HANNELORE ROMEIKE,
DANIEL ROMEIKE,

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A 087 368 601

A 087 368 602

LYDIA JOHANNA ROMEIKE,

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JOSHUA MATHIAS ROMEIKE,

CHRISTIAN IMMANUEL ROMEIKE,
DAMARIS DOROTHY ROMEIKE,

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A 087 368 605
A 087 368 606

Memphis, Tennessee
is an accurate, verbatim transcript of the recording as provided by
the Executive Office for Immigration Review and that this is. the
original transcript thereof for the file of the Executive Office
for Immigration Review.

March 23 2010
(completion date)

By submission of this CERTIFICATE PAGE, the Contractor certifies

that a Sony BEC/T-147, 4-channel transcriber or equivalent and/or
CD, as described in Section C, paragraph C.3.3.2 of the contract,
was used to transcribe the Record of Proceeding shown in the above
paragraph.

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