Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sent a scathing letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Wednesday, asking the Biden administration to reverse course on its pending deportation of a German homeschool family that has lived in the U.S. for 15 years.
The Romeike family was caught off guard earlier this month when they were ordered to meet with an immigration agent and were told to prepare to self-deport. Uwe Romeike told The Daily Wire in an interview on Wednesday that the orders “came as a surprise,” but said that his family is “trust[ing] God to make a way for us to stay here.”
Blackburn blasted the Biden administration for applying “two standards of justice” in a letter to Mayorkas shared with The Daily Wire. Blackburn pointed to how the Biden administration has targeted the Romeike family while illegal immigrants flood across the southern border at record levels.
“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.”
Uwe Romeike and his wife moved their five children at the time to the United States after facing fines from the German government for pulling their children out of the public school system. Homeschooling is rarely permitted in Germany and only for medical reasons. When the Romeikes began homeschooling in 2006, the German government levied fines that amounted to around $9,000 and threatened to remove the Romeike children from the care of their parents, WBIR reported.
The couple, who had two more children after moving to the United States, were granted permission by an immigration judge to live in the country. After the Obama administration’s Department of Justice fought the decision, the family took the fight to the courts, which ultimately ruled against them in 2013, arguing that the Romeikes did not prove that they faced persecution in Germany.
While the appeals court judge ruled against the Romeikes’ asylum claims, the family was allowed to remain in the United States indefinitely, and they checked in annually with an immigration agent, but that all changed earlier this month when the family was told to prepare for deportation even as the Biden administration continues to oversee record-breaking numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border into the United States.
“This enforcement action highlights the two standards of justice that have been a constant theme of President Biden’s first two and a half years in office,” Blackburn continued. “You are targeting a family who fled Germany in search of basic parental rights and has legally resided in the United States for years.”
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“Simultaneously, you have allowed millions of illegal immigrants — some of whom have been identified as terrorists — to enter the country with abandon,” the Republican senator added. “I urge this administration to reverse course and allow the Romeike family to continue their lives in Morristown, Tennessee.”