Biden's odd asylum policy

 Hot Air:

It may be a wee bit more complicated than that, but perhaps not much more. The Romeike family fled Germany in 2008 after authorities cracked down on the practice of home-schooling, and applied for asylum in the US. Initially, a judge granted their asylum request, but when the Obama administration appealed the decision, that started a long legal odyssey that may have come to an end late last week:

The family moved to the U.S. from Germany in 2008. Their application for asylum said they were fined by the German government roughly $9,000 after homeschooling their children, court documents show.

An immigration judge initially granted the family’s application for asylum. The U.S. Department of Justice appealed the decision, and the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals revoked the family’s asylum status, documents show.

The family, with the help of the U.S. Home School Defense Association, appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel unanimously ruled against the family.

“They have not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school-attendance law amounts to persecution against them,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the court.

That didn’t happen last week. In fact, that happened ten years ago in 2013, and shortly after the Supreme Court refused to review the decision. And to be fair, the courts probably got this right; asylum for persecution doesn’t usually involve non-discriminatory enforcement of regulation. (Germany enforces the home-schooling prohibitions equally regardless of religious affiliation, and even non-affiliation.)

Since that time, WBIR reports, the Romeikes have continued to live in the US, within a legal limbo of not being here legally but without any good reason to deport them. Since their arrival, the Romeikes have welcomed two more children to the family, which may be a complicating factor for their removal, and at least two of the emigrated children have grown up and married American citizens. That tolerance, it should be noted, seems to have been present in three successive administrations … until now.

So what changed? That’s unclear. What is clear is that someone in the Department of Homeland Security decided to make a change. An immigration official went to the Romeikes’ home and told them to prepare to “self-deport,” apparently hoping that they would go quietly. With minor children still at home and in home-schooling, the Romeikes would much rather stay in the US, especially since the German authorities are not in any better mood regarding home-schooling than they were in 2008.

Clearly, the Romeikes have not been a problem to the US during their stay, but that may not be terribly relevant to enforcing the law. But even with that, it seems very strange to get particular about enforcing the law now after a decade of tolerance to their presence. Perhaps DHS intended to normalize their status after a brief self-deportation (which might be necessary in normal bureaucratic procedures), but that would usually involve letting them know that. It sounds more like DHS wants them to leave on their own to preserve their ability to emigrate legally, but without any arrangements or consideration to allow that on an expedited basis. That could leave them stuck in Germany for a while, which would be economically devastating to the Romeikes.

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What I find odd about the deportation is that the Romeikes have not been a burden on US taxpayers like many illegal immigrants that the Biden administration has welcomed with open arms.  They have generally been productive and some of their children are now US citizens. 

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