Free Republic

Fifteen-year-old Daniel Romeike loves America -- his adopted country. But if the Obama Administration has its way, Daniel, his parents and his brothers and sisters will be deported in a court battle over the right to home school. "If I had a chance to talk to President Obama, I would ask him to let us stay in this great country of freedom and opportunity," Daniel told Fox News. The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States -- where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical...

Fifteen-year-old Daniel Romeike loves America — his adopted country. But if the Obama Administration has its way, Daniel, his parents and his brothers and sisters will be deported in a court battle over the right to home school.“If I had a chance to talk to President Obama, I would ask him to let us stay in this great country of freedom and opportunity,” Daniel told Fox News.The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family...

Eric 'Himmler' Holder is trying to deport a German family granted political asylum in Tennessee due to being persecuted for homeschooling their family back in Germany. The appeal will be heard on April 23, 2013 at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. More details on the case hereClick excerpt link for Fox News report and please share it with your friends and pray for this brave family.

The Obama administration is arguing in federal court that a homeschooling family from Germany should be deported back to their homeland, despite what they say is religious persecution. The German government prevented Uwe and Hannelore Romeike from teaching their five children at home instead of sending them to government-run schools, fining them and threatening to prosecute them if they don't obey. 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...

“The Obama administration is basically saying there is no right to home school anywhere,” said Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association. “It’s an utter repudiation of parental liberty and religious liberty.”

Sobering Thoughts from the Romeike Case By Michael Farris, J.D., LL.M. HSLDA Founder and Chairman Having immersed myself for about eight days in writing a brief for the Romeike family (a German homeschooling family who fled to the United States for political asylum), I wanted to share some insights I gained into the view of our own government toward the rights of homeschooling parents in general. You will benefit from some context. The U.S. law of asylum allows a refugee to stay in the United States permanently if he can show that he is being persecuted for one of several...

Rights: The Senate is considering a treaty which says "disability is an evolving concept" and which would infringe on U.S. sovereignty and the right to raise our children as American families see fit. Those who thought that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) adequately guaranteed the rights of the handicapped to have access to all facets of American life were apparently wrong. The U.S. Senate is considering ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which President Obama signed in 2009 and which goes well beyond mandating wheel-chair ramps for public buildings. CRPD doesn't even bother to...

Liberals intent on imposing backdoor globalism < Snip > ... With LOST dead, the new treaties being promoted to take its place include the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Disabled, which calls for government agents to supersede the authority of parents of disabled children and even covers abortion. Also, the Obama administration has begun negotiations on a new U.N. treaty to create international gun control rules that could slowly erode our Second Amendment. The globalist ideologues behind these treaties are either ignorant of or hostile to the universal human experience that problems are best solved by the people...

Via e-mail today July 25, 2012 Senate Committee Vote Today on UN Treaty—Keep Calling! Michael Farris is founder and chairman of Homeschooling Legal Defense Assocation HSLDA, and homeschooling father of 10. Dear HSLDA Members and Friends: After a brief postponement the U.S. Senate has decided to continue to push forward the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and has scheduled a mark-up and committee vote for tomorrow. As we have mentioned in previous updates, HSLDA believes that this treaty, while sounding good in name, could become a tool to restrict our rights as citizens and...

On February 13, 2012, Representative Bob Evans (District 91) filed a bill in the Mississippi Legislature that would require parents to obtain permission from a judge to homeschool their children. House Bill 464 would impose a duty on school attendance officers to collect and maintain unspecified and unlimited information on all children being homeschooled and to report this information to the judge of the youth court or chancery court. This information would be used “for the purpose of exempting such children from the truancy laws of this state.” There is no requirement in the bill that there be any case...

In her first address to West Virginia’s joint standing committee on education this week, incoming West Virginia State Superintendent of Schools Jorea Marple criticized homeschoolers. According to a West Virginia homeschooler who posted to an Internet group, Speaker pro tem and Delegate Ron Fragale told her that Mrs. Marple said “West Virginia homeschoolers need more oversight, better standards, better evidence of progress; homeschoolers have too much flexibility.” Delegate Fragale told the homeschooler that “he’s not sure why Mrs. Marple is so negative about homeschooling. Perhaps there are some new board members who don’t have a good impression of it. However,...

A new study from the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) estimates that there are over two million children currently being home schooled in the United States. The author of the study, NHERI’s president Dr. Brian D. Ray, analyzed data from both state and federal education agencies as well as private home-school groups, concluding that there are as many as 2.346 million home-schooled students across the nation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010 there were about 54 million children between the ages of five and 17 in the U.S., meaning that nearly four percent of school-aged kids —...

Support David McKinley for Congress Dear HSLDA Members, David McKinley We are excited to announce that the HSLDA PAC has endorsed David McKinley, candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from West Virginia’s 1st District. David McKinley is a friend of homeschooling and a strong supporter of traditional family values and parental rights. Electing David to the U.S. House of Representatives will be an enormous benefit to homeschoolers and to our nation as a whole. The election will be held on Tuesday, November 2. For more information on David McKinley, or to find out how you can help David if you...

  HOME SCHOOL LEGAL DEFENSE ASSOCIATION   J. Michael Smith, Esq. President Michael P. Farris, Esq. Chairman U.S. Census 2010 Update February 26, 2010 Americans from coast to coast will start receiving the U.S. Census mailings for the next census in March of 2010. You may have questions about your rights in regards to the upcoming questionnaires. How can you protect the integrity and confidentiality of your homeschool while responding to the U.S. Census? In this report, we attempt to provide answers to frequently asked questions about the census. What are the U.S. Census Questions? According to the U.S. Census...

In a case with international ramifications, Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman granted the political asylum application of a German homeschooling family. The Romeikes are Christians from Bissinggen, Germany, who fled persecution in August 2008 to seek political asylum in the United States. The request was granted January 26 after a hearing was held in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 21. “We can’t expect every country to follow our constitution,” said Judge Burman. “The world might be a better place if it did. However, the rights being violated here are basic human rights that no country has a right to violate.” Burman...

While the number of people in academia who are openly critical of homeschooling are few, every now and again an article will be published in a university periodical which attacks homeschooling. The critics in academia come from the far left of the political spectrum. One such critic, Robin L. West of the Georgetown University Law Center, recently published an article titled “The Harms of Homeschooling,” which appeared in the Summer/Fall 2009 issue of the University of Maryland’s Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly. Before we answer the specific charges Ms. West makes against homeschooling we’d just like to give you a...

A longtime champion of homeschooling rights around the globe, Home School Legal Defense Association Senior Counsel and Director of State and International Relations Christopher J. Klicka was called home by his Lord on October 12, 2009, at age 48, following a 15-year battle with multiple sclerosis. An attorney, spokesman, lobbyist, and homeschooling husband and father, Chris is survived by his wife, Tracy, their seven children (ages 11–21), and his parents, Ardath and George Klicka. “Chris was both a people person and a goal person. He cared deeply about people, but was also driven to always do more!” says HSLDA President...

“Homeschooling is the sleeping giant of the American education system,” is the opening line of a recent article by Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews. He’s right. He’s also right when he says, “All surveys of home-schooled students so far indicate they have higher achievement rates on average than regular students,” and when he dismisses the claim that homeschoolers might not be properly socialized by saying, “Homeschoolers go outside often and get just as big a dose of pain and joy and ignorance and wisdom as regular school kids.” Where Mathews goes wrong is his support for a recommendation by...

Following is an email I received this afternoon from the HSLDA: Dear HSLDA Members and Friends, Monday in a Harlem middle school, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told a group of 120 students that administration officials are actively discussing “when and how it might be possible to join” (that is, ratify) the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). As before, she also communicated what a disgrace it is that the U.S. would stand with only Somalia against such a widely accepted treaty. This is the first direct public statement by the Obama administration that...

A British plan to allow local authorities "the right of access to the home" and "the right to speak with each child alone" in order to evaluate homeschooling families and make certain they do what the government wants is a warning about what could happen in the United States, according to the world's largest homeschool advocacy organization. "On June 11, 2009, a report on home education in England by Graham Badman, a former Managing Director of Children, Families and Education in the County of Kent, was accepted in full by the British Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families,"...