Excerpt of an article from HSLDA:

Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is supporting a first-of-its kind application for political asylum by a German homeschooling family. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike left their home in Bissingen, Germany to escape government persecution directed at them because they homeschool. They arrived in the United States in August of this year and are settling in Tennessee where they have been warmly welcomed by local homeschoolers.

Michael P. Farris, HSLDA founder and chairman, and chancellor of Patrick Henry College, noted in an interview with World Net Daily on April 15, 2007 that “Germany’s behavior in this area is the edge of the coming night. You don’t expect to apply for political asylum from a Western country…but one person we met with said…it wasn’t so much that the [Berlin] Wall came down after the fall of communism, but that the wall moved to the West. The East German government’s philosophy seems to be the style adopted by today’s German government as it approaches children.”

Political asylum is available to people already in the United States who fear returning to their home country due to actual persecution or who have a well-founded fear of actual persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Homeschoolers certainly have a “well-founded fear” of persecution in Germany.

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Excerpt of an article from HSLDA:

Despite protests from the Youth Welfare Authority (the “Jugendamt”), a Germany Family Court judge on November 12 verbally restored to Johannes and Cornelia Gorber full custody of their children, who had been removed from the family home in January.

The Gorbers homeschooled all of their children over the past 15 years. But now, according to the judge’s order, the older children must be enrolled in school and the 3-year-old in a playgroup. Homeschooling parents in Germany face these types of repercussions on a regular basis.

When the Jugendamt asked the judge to order ongoing jurisdiction so their caseworkers could “stay involved to check up on the family,” Mrs. Gorber had this to say to the judge:

“Look at the children. If the so-called isolation and relationships ‘only in the family’ is so bad, can you please explain to me, how, after 10 years of homeschooling, they have turned out so well? They are academically on par at their [new] schools. Their teachers are all satisfied with them, and some are even pleased with their work, wishing they had more students like them. Our children have no problems with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes or other addictions which we see with so many children these days. So what do you want to control our kids for?”

After listening to testimony, the judge expressed his own surprise that the children were doing far better academically and socially than he expected.

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