According to the arguments made by the U.S. government in Romeike v. Holder, Farris said, “If you believe that God wants you to do something, that’s not going to be a protected religious belief unless you’re part of a church that forces you to take whatever action is in question. “Most evangelical Christians — in fact most American Christians — don’t think that way. We view religious freedom as individual, but the Obama administration doesn’t,” Farris said.
The case of the German homeschooling family who sought refuge in the United States and now is facing a deportation fight has implications for Americans, particularly when the U.S. government has said a nation violates no one’s rights if it bans homeschooling entirely.

“There are implications arising from the case that impact religious freedom for everybody and particularly the application of religious freedom to the homeschooling context,” Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, told Baptist Press.

“Everyone who values religious freedom ought to be really paying attention to what’s going on here because the Obama administration’s position is that religious freedom is not an individual right but only a group right,” Farris said.

The case involves Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, devout Christians who fled Germany in 2008 after facing exorbitant fines, forcible removal of their five school-age children and possible imprisonment because they chose to homeschool their children in a nation where homeschooling is illegal.

The Romeikes were granted political asylum in 2010 but the U.S. government overturned that decision in 2012. Their case now is being appealed to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Farris will present oral arguments on their behalf April 23.

According to the arguments made by the U.S. government in Romeike v. Holder, Farris said, “If you believe that God wants you to do something, that’s not going to be a protected religious belief unless you’re part of a church that forces you to take whatever action is in question.

“Most evangelical Christians — in fact most American Christians — don’t think that way. We view religious freedom as individual, but the Obama administration doesn’t,” Farris said.

The U.S. government said the German homeschoolers were not being religiously persecuted by their government because they could not prove that all homeschoolers were religious or that all Christians believed in the need for homeschooling.

The U.S. government, in the Romeike case, also said there was no violation of anyone’s protected rights in a law that entirely bans homeschooling. There would only be a problem if Germany banned homeschooling for some but permitted it for others, according to Farris’ explanation of the government’s position.

In addition to persecution for religious reasons, the U.S. law of asylum says a refugee can stay in the United States permanently if he can show he is being persecuted as part of a “particular social group.”

The government said the Romeikes do not meet this standard because the family can change — as in stop homeschooling their children and send them to public schools.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is the official in charge of making the ultimate decision regarding the Romeikes, Farris said.

“All immigration cases of this sort are the name of the applicant against the attorney general. That’s standard,” Farris said. “But we are aware that he knows personally about the case. What it says is that this decision is being made at a very high level by the administration and it’s not some obscure clerk making a decision they don’t know about.”

It’s unclear why the U.S. government appealed the grant of asylum to the Romeike family, who live now in Tennessee.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available.]