Since President Joe Biden took office, there have been some 6 million illegal immigrant crossings on the U.S. southern border — more than 1.5 million so-called “gotaways.”
The same administration that has allowed millions of illegal immigrants refuge in the United States is working feverishly to deport a Tennessee evangelical Christian family that fled religious persecution in Germany 15 years ago.
In a scathing letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a frustrated U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) railed against what she described as the administration’s “two standards of justice.”
“I write today to express my disappointment with this administration’s misplaced priorities regarding the enforcement of our laws, as well as your blatant application of two standards of justice,” Blackburn wrote. “As millions of illegal immigrants flood across our southern border and disappear into our country, your immigration authorities have chosen to punish a family who has built their lives in Tennessee within the legal parameters of our immigration system.”
The Romeike family was informed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last month that family members not born in the U.S. had four weeks to get their papers in order. They are being sent back to Germany.
The Home School Legal Defense Association said the family was given no prior warning or explanation.
Uwe Romeike and his wife, Hannelore Romeike, left their homeland with their five children after the German government lodged stiff fines because the couple violated a ban on homeschooling. Uwe told the New York Post he and Hannelore Romeike decided to homeschool after the local public school system inundated their children with content contrary to their Christian values. The German textbooks, they said, were filled with endorsements for abortion and homosexuality and filled with assaults on “family families,” Uwe Romeike told the publication.
German police officers showed up at the house to drag their children to public school against their wishes. That was enough.
The Romeike family sought asylum in the U.S. in 2008, landing in Morristown, TN.
Two years later, a Tennessee immigration judge granted the family asylum. The judge’s decision was later overturned on appeal. Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote the Romeikes failed to prove how German authorities enforcing the school attendance law “amounts to persecution.”
Interestingly, the Obama administration’s DHS — after an overwhelming public granted the family permission to remain under an order of supervision and indefinite deferred action, the Post reported.
Now, the administration led by Obama’s vice president is pushing to deport a family that has grown and, by all accounts, has been an asset to their community and adopted country. The Romeikes had two more children, who are, by their birth, U.S. citizens. Two of their adult children are married to U.S. citizens.
“We are no financial burden for the government,” Uwe Romeike, who has worked as a piano accompanist at nearby Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, told the Post. “We pay our taxes, we contribute to society and in the community.”
Blackburn said the Romeike are being punished for doing things the right way, while the Biden administration rewards illegal immigrants whose first act upon entry is breaking U.S. law.
“As millions of illegal immigrants flood across our southern border and disappear into our country, your immigration authorities have chosen to punish a family who has built their lives in Tennessee within the legal parameters of our immigration system,” the senator wrote in the letter Mayorkas.
U.S. Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01) introduced a specialized bill to provide permanent residency to Uwe Romeike, Hannelore Romeike, and their non-citizen children.
But the clock is ticking on their time in the U.S.
The Home School Legal Defense Association started a petition demanding the Biden administration direct the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reinstate the Romeikes’ deferred status and save them from deportation. As of Thursday evening, 102,145 people had signed the petition, topping the 100,000-signature goal. The deportation deadline is October 11.
“Germany’s opposition to homeschooling has only increased in the last 10 years, making criminal charges against this family all but certain upon their return,” the HSLDA said.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to open the door to a sea of illegal immigrants at the southern border.
Since Biden took office, more than 1.6 million illegal immigrants have evaded apprehension, according to border patrol sources.
The House GOP in early September noted:
- CBP has seized 23,769 of fentanyl so far in FY23.
- Already in FY23, fentanyl seizures have surpassed the FY22 seizure total.
- Cartels are now making $13 billion a year smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States.
- In August, we discovered that a smuggler with ties to ISIS helped migrants enter the United States from Mexico.
- In just the first ten months of FY23, 146 people whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the Southern Border, an all time record.
In June, Camilo Hurtado Campos, a criminal illegal immigrant, was arrested in Franklin, Tennessee, after restaurant workers discovered videos of him raping and abusing unconscious children. He had been able to stay in the United States for more than two decades before his arrest.
In July, Blackburn and the Tennessee congressional delegation demanded answers from Mayorkas.
“In a complete breakdown of the rule of law, Campos was allowed to remain in the country even though he has a criminal record, having previously been charged with public intoxication and three instances of driving without a license…,” the letter states. “While this administration has spent years defending its failed border policies as compassionate and humane, there is nothing compassionate about policies that allow a child sexual predator and serial rapist to remain in an American community undetected for more than two decades. The simple fact remains: if Camilo Campos had been arrested at any point in the past twenty years for his violation of federal law, these precious children would not have been subjected to his horrific abuse.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
