This picture of Hannelore and Damaris Romeike was used by Slate’s Sally Kohn to highlight the unbearable whiteness of the Romeikes.
By Allan Wall
05/28/2013
This picture of Hannelore and Damaris Romeike was used by Slate’s Sally Kohn to highlight the unbearable whiteness of the Romeikes.
VDARE.COM readers know that our country’s refugee/asylum policy is a disaster.
For example, the Boston bombings would never have occurred if the Chechen/Avar Tsarnaevs had not been given asylum here. The fact that Tamerlan and the parents later returned to Russia — the country they were supposedly fleeing — indicates what a fraud it was. And, as Steve Sailer has pointed out recently, the Tsarnaevs weren’t the only ones.
(See Michelle Malkin’s article America’s Insane Asylum for Jihadists, Hustlers and Frauds for even more examples).
Janet Napolitano, however, assures us that our asylum screening process is A-OK — just like she claims the border is secure and the system worked to stop the underwear bomber.
But even though there is room for fraudulent refugees like the Tsarnaev family, and room for tens of millions of illegal aliens and their families, according to Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, there is no room for a family of white German evangelical homeschoolers.
Back in March, I reported on the predicament of music teachers Uwe and Hannalore Romeike, who fled Germany in 2008 due to government harassment they received for home schooling their children. They had been fined and were facing the possibility of losing custody of their children. (They now have six, with another on the way). The Romeikes settled in Tennessee and applied for asylum.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, (USCIS),
Refugee status or asylum may be granted to people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion. ..Refugees are generally people outside of their country who are unable or unwilling to return home because they fear serious harm. …You may apply for asylum in the United States regardless of your country of origin or your current immigration status…. Refugees & Asylum USCIS
The Romeikes applied for asylum status and received it in 2010 (as do the majority of asylum applicants).
Case closed?
No — because Eric “My People” Holder’s DOJ got involved, seeking to reverse their asylum status. The Board of Immigration Appeals backed up Holder. The Romeikes appealed.
The DOJ’s basic argument is that, since basically nobody is allowed to homeschool in Germany, the Romeikes aren’t being persecuted, so they shouldn’t be given asylum.
When I wrote in March, the case was pending before the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
On April 23rd the family’s appeal was heard by a Sixth Circuit three-judge panel in Cincinnati, and on May 14th, the Sixth Court of Appeals ruled against the Romeikes, upholding the Obama administration’s asylum denial.[PDF] (The judges: Ronald Lee Gilman, appointed by Bill Clinton, Jeffrey Sutton and John M. Rogers, appointed by George Bush.)
The court did acknowledge a constitutional right of Americans to direct their children’s education, but disagreed that the German policy amounted to a persecution meriting asylum according to U.S. law.
Michael Farris of the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association), which is defending the Romeikes, is not giving up. “We believe the Sixth Circuit is wrong, and we will appeal their decision,” said Farris.[ HSLDA press release, May 14, 2013]
The case has attracted much outrage in the blogosphere. It’s obviously suspicious that the Obama administration would go out of its way to deport this family while attempting to legalize tens of millions of illegal aliens, and not apologizing for admitting phony “refugees” who commit crimes and terrorism. .
But is there any support for the Romeikes among politicians? The natural place to look would be Tennessee politicians.
The state’s two senators, both Republicans, are Bob Corker, who has a B- on immigration from NumbersUSA, and Lamar Alexander, who has an F-. I checked out Corker’s website and Alexander’s website. There was nothing on the topic on either.
So I called up the Senators’ offices. I was told that neither has released a statement on the matter, although Senator Alexander’s receptionist said he was aware of the situation.
The Romeikes reside in Tennessee’s first congressional district, represented by Representative Phil Roe (with an A+ from Numbers USA). I called his office. The staffer who took my call told me to email another staffer, which I did. Later the same day, I received an email saying this:
Congressman Roe has formally shown his support for the Romeike family, but as this is a casework issue, that’s all the information I can give you. As a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, the Congressman strongly supports families’ right to homeschool and make the decisions they feel are best for their children’s education. He will continue to work on this issue and support the Romeike family where it is appropriate.
Needless to say, there is criticism of the support for the Romeikes. For example, Glenn Beck has been a big supporter of the family, so he has been a target. And, needless to say, the ever-present “racism” card has been played.
Here’s Salon’s Sally Kohn [Twitter] in her article Glenn Beck’s Favorite Immigrants subtitled “Conservatives rally around a controversial family facing deportation. Take one guess why.”
Here are some excerpts:
Did you know that Glenn Beck has pledged $50,000 to the legal fund of an immigrant family facing deportation from the United States? As of April 9, a petition to the White House to grant the family permanent asylum, organized by Christian conservative groups, topped 100,000 signatories, the threshold to trigger a response from the administration.
Confused? I can explain. The Romeike family aren’t just any immigrants. They are evangelical Christians from Germany. And, oh yeah, they’re white….Home schooling: the new white.”
Kohn goes on and on from there. Here’s how she ends:
The simple fact is that, whether they own up to the racial disparities or not, conservatives do not want mercy — let alone amnesty — for starving families from Mexico, [VDARE.com Note: There is no starvation in Mexico — there is obesity, and it’s worse north of the border.] nor for women facing genital mutilation in Africa. But white Christian evangelical home schoolers from Germany? Willkommen, one and all.
Interestingly enough, about halfway through her screed, Kohn inadvertently reveals the utter hypocrisy of such criticism:
Look, this is how racial stereotyping works. No one comes right out and says, “We only like the immigrants who look like us.”
But isn’t that exactly what Hispanic activists are doing? Aren’t we constantly told that we have to let in more Hispanic immigrants in order to make the Hispanics already here happy?
If Hispanics want immigrants who “look like them” isn’t that “racial stereotyping”? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
So even supposing Beck were supporting the Romeikes because they’re white (which of course he strenuously denies), so what?
If we’re going to be taking in a million or so legal immigrants a year, why not bring in more people who resemble the historic American majority? Why not bring in more immigrants from the British Isles and Europe?
They assimilate better, they commit fewer crimes and they don’t use so much welfare.
We ought to be bringing these questions up publicly. Of course, GOP politicians are too terrified to do so.
The Tsarnaev case, contrasted with the Romeike predicament, shows clearly that our refugee/asylum system, like every aspect of our immigration policy, is broken and needs a complete overhaul — where it is not actually controlled by a hostile elite that hates the historic American majority.
American citizen Allan Wall recently moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. Allan’s wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here ; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.
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