In 2008, the Romeike family came to the United States to escape religious persecution in Germany (yes, Germany). The family wanted to home school their children because they opposed the government curriculum, which includes subjects such as “sex education, evolution, and fairy tales.” The Romeike parents were threatened with jail, fined $9,000, and had three of their children escorted to school by the German police. They filed for asylum in the United States, and their case was granted in 2010 (yes, granted). However, DHS appealed and eventually, the family was denied asylum and ordered deported to Germany. After a lengthy court battle–where they became a cause célèbre for Christian homeschoolers and others on the political right–the family’s removal was “deferred” and they were allowed to remain in the U.S., even though they had been ordered deported.
That’s where things stood until last month, when the family reported for a regular check-in with ICE, and were told they had four weeks to obtain German passports and leave the country. The family’s supporters rallied to their defense and earlier this month, ICE granted them an additional one year deferral. However because of the outstanding deportation order, the Romeikes remain under the threat of removal.
For those of us interested in asylum, the Romeike case raises a number of moral and legal questions. It also reveals some important lessons for those willing to pay attention. (more…)
Police officials in Cologne, German have received over 500 criminal complaints about attacks that occurred this past New Year’s Eve. Forty percent of the attacks involved a sexual offense, and a large majority of the victims were women. Most of the culprits “were said to have been of a North African or Middle Eastern appearance,” and so far, 22 of the 32 identified suspects are asylum seekers. Similar assaults were reported in other European countries.
Perhaps in this case, the solution is worse than the problem.
Not surprisingly, those who oppose refugee resettlement have seized on the attacks to denounce Germany’s generous asylum policy. There were also several xenophobic assaults on refugees, supposedly in retaliation for the New Year’s Eve incidents.
The whole situation seems a bit strange to me: What exactly did these asylum seekers (and others) do? Why did this happen now? Have there been previous attacks that we have not heard about? What explains this behavior?
First, based on the reports I have seen, I am really not sure what happened. Was this Spring-Break type debauchery exaggerated by anti-refugee hysteria, or something much worse (there is at least one report of Syrian nationals raping two girls at a New Year’s Eve party, but the suspects are not asylum seekers and the incident seems unconnected to the other attacks)?
I must admit that I am of two minds about this question. On the one hand, if scores of young women are reporting sexual assaults, that is deadly serious and must be addressed forcefully. On the other hand, I am wary of the old trope where the swarthy foreigner violates the innocent white female. This same story has been used many times to justify violence against “the other.” For example, last year a young man entered an African-American church in South Carolina and murdered nine people, yelling at them: “You rape our women… You have to go!” Jews have long dealt with this issue in Europe, where for many centuries, we were “the other” (until Hitler eliminated that problem). In those days (and unfortunately still today in some places), Jews were accused of killing Christian babies in order to use their blood for ritual purposes. These “blood libels” were notorious lies, but they were used as an excuse to harm Jews. There’s a tragic/comic joke about the blood libels that I’ve always appreciated:
In a small village in the Ukraine, a terrifying rumor was spreading: A Christian girl had been found murdered. Realizing the dire consequences of such an event, and fearing a pogrom [a murderous anti-Jewish riot], the Jewish community gathered in the synagogue to plan whatever defensive actions were possible under the circumstances. Just as the emergency meeting was being called to order, in ran the president of the synagogue, out of breath and all excited. “Brothers!” he cried, “I have wonderful news! The murdered girl is Jewish!”
You get the point. Obviously, this does not mean that the attacks in Cologne did not happen the way they have been portrayed, but it does urge us to be cautious in drawing conclusions, especially since there is so little publicly-available detail about those attacks.
Assuming that the initial reports are correct and the attackers are asylum seekers, what is going on here? Maybe one explanation is that the asylum seekers in question are young men from sexually repressive countries who have been living in instability for many months. Now that they are in safe, open societies, where men and women mix freely, they cannot handle the adjustment. Not to let them off the hook—if they are guilty of assault or other crimes, they should be punished—but when refugees behave badly, there are often underlying pathologies that need to be examined. Maybe it is too late for these particular refugees (who might be deported), but at least this highlights an issue that can be addressed for other asylum seekers with similar backgrounds.
Another explanation–the one favored by opponents of refugee resettlement–is that asylum seekers are a danger to the receiving communities, and that their values are incompatible with Western society. The New Year’s Eve attacks, under this theory, are just one iteration of the problem. I think this view is incorrect. Refugees are not perfect, but the evidence suggests that they are no more likely to commit crimes than anyone else.
But of course, many refugees are damaged people who have suffered trauma. They come from societies that are much more repressive and conservative than those in the West. While these factors may help explain criminal behavior among refugees, in my opinion, they do not in any way excuse it. Nevertheless, we need to keep this in mind when considering refugee resettlement. We need to help refugees deal with their trauma. We also need to help them understand and integrate into their new communities. This is easier said than done, especially in a situation like Germany’s, where tens of thousands of people are arriving each month.
In the U.S., our refugee numbers are much lower, and we are more able to help people adjust to their new lives. As a result, the overall crime rate for non-citizens seems to be the same as, or lower than that for native-born Americans. Vetting refugees and helping them integrate is the best way to protect ourselves, while at the same time meeting our humanitarian obligations and ideals.
The doors to Europe appear to be closing, and the New Year’s Eve attacks will only make things more difficult for all refugees. My hope is that we in the West will learn from this experience. Receiving countries should step up their efforts to recognize and pro-actively address the psycho-social needs of refugees, so that they will better acculturate to their new homes. This, to me, is the best way forward for everyone.
It seems that Glenn Beck is hiring immigration lawyers, and I want in. First, some background:
I’ve written before (here and here) about the Romeike family, a German Evangelical homeschooling family. They were granted political asylum in the United States after the German government tried to force them to send their children to public school. DHS appealed the ruling, and the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the Immigration Judge’s decision. The case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Oral argument is scheduled for later this month.
The Romeikes have a tough case. They have to demonstrate that they face persecution in Germany. They face fines and possible jail time, and they might even lose custody of their children. Such punishments are harsh, but I doubt a court would find that they rise to the level of persecution (though maybe the loss of the children would qualify).
This would be me if I worked for Glenn Beck (except I am not black) (and I normally do not wear a tie).
Further, and this may be the most controversial aspect of the case, the Department of Justice is supposedly taking the position that the Romeikes do not have a “right to home school anywhere.” At least this is how the Home School Legal Defense Association characterizes the DOJ’s position. Frankly, I am a bit skeptical that this is actually DOJ’s position (their brief is not public, so I have not seen it), given that they can probably win their case without stirring up this type of controversy (see previous paragraph). But I suppose if DOJ wanted to make all possible arguments against asylum, this would be one.
So how does Glenn Beck tie into all this?
Earlier this week, Mr. Beck discussed the Romeike family on his show:
“They [Romeikes] did it the right way,” said Beck. “They had their visas. They came here and asked for political asylum. Because if they return to Germany the state will take their children unless they dump them into the system that [goes against their Evangelical values].”
Beck said that the idea of deporting the Romeikes flies in the face of everything that the U.S. stands for. “There is nothing more un-American than this.”
Mr. Beck compared the family with our country’s earliest settlers, who were seeking religious liberty.
The Romeike’s have become a bit of a cause célèbre among American homeschoolers and religious conservatives. A petition to the White House supporting them has received over 100,000 signatures, and–this is the part that caught my attention–Glenn Beck has pledged $50,000 to pay for their legal fees.
As a side note, I do these cases for far less than $50,000 (for affirmative asylum cases, I charge $2,400, which makes me think I need to raise my rates). Mr. Beck, if you feel inclined to help out others seeking asylum based on religious persecution (and I represent many, including people from Iran, Iraq, China, Afghanistan, and Eritrea), please give me a call.
So is it hypocritical for conservatives who normally oppose immigration to support the Romeikes? Writing for Salon, Sally Kohn theorizes that Mr. Beck and his fellow conservatives are supporting the Romeikes because they are white. While I am no fan of Glenn Beck, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one (though it seems reasonable to ask why he isn’t funding asylum seekers from countries like Iran and Eritrea, which harshly punish–and kill–religious dissidents). So what’s going on here?
My guess is that Mr. Beck is confusing American values–such as allowing parents to home school their children–with asylum law, which protects people from persecution on account of religion. Just because we in the U.S. enjoy a particular right–like the right to school our children at home–does not mean that an alien can get asylum when his country refuses to allow him the same right. We have a right to abortion in the U.S. and a right to own a gun, but I doubt an alien who was denied one of these rights in another country would qualify for asylum in the U.S.
Also, I wonder whether Mr. Beck has thought about the dreaded “slippery slope” argument. Would he support this family if they were members of a Christian Identity (i.e., Neo-Nazi) Church? What if they were (gasp!) Muslims?
The Romeikes, like any other asylum seeker, need to show that they face persecution, as that term has been defined by case law. Otherwise, they simply do not qualify for asylum. I wish the Romeikes well in their case. But if it doesn’t work out for them, and if Glenn Beck wants to fund some other worthy asylum seekers who are fleeing religious persecution, I have a few cases he might be interested in…
I corrected an error in an earlier version of this post (see comments).
A couple of recent articles got me thinking about how the U.S. handles asylum seekers coming from countries that we view as friends–Western-style democracies that generally respect human rights.
The first is an article from the Jewish Daily Forward (featuring a quote from my esteemed law partner, Todd Pilcher) about asylum seekers from Israel. The article found that 18 Israeli nationals sought asylum in Fiscal Year 2011. The article found that the asylees were a “strange and quirky mix:”
One, an Arab citizen of Israel, is a gay man who convinced authorities he would face violence from his own family and tribe if forced to return to Israel. Lack of adequate action by Israeli police played a role in the approval of the request, his attorney said. Another is an Israeli woman who suffered domestic abuse. She also received asylum after making the case that Israeli authorities were not protecting her. Yet a third is the son of a founder of Hamas who, after spying on the terrorist-designated group for Israeli authorities, felt unsafe under Israeli protection and fled to the United States in fear for his life [I wrote about this case here].
German citizens react to the news that one of their own has received asylum in the U.S.
The second article is a follow-up on a homeschooler family that received asylum from Germany. In that case, an Immigration Judge found that the family faced persecution in Germany after they refused for religious reasons to send their children to public school, as required by German law. The Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the IJ’s decision last May, and the homeschoolers filed a petition for review and a brief with the Sixth Circuit. The case is currently pending.
Other “Western” countries listed as source countries for asylum seekers in the U.S. include Argentina (9 people granted asylum in FY 2011), Brazil (20 people), Germany (4), Latvia (6), New Zealand (5), Poland (6), and the United Kingdom (8). These numbers are pretty small given the total of 24,988 people granted asylum in FY 2011, but such cases raise some interesting questions.
First, how do the source countries feel about a decision from the U.S. government that they are persecuting (or, at best, failing to protect from persecution) their own citizens? When asked by the Forward, an Israeli diplomat said that the scarcity of asylum cases in the United States did not require the Israeli government to bring up the issue with Washington. The official added that the few cases in which Israelis were granted asylum in America represented “unusual circumstances” and did not reflect on Israel’s democracy. I’d bet that like the Israelis, most Western democracies see these asylum cases as aberrations and aren’t particularly bothered by them. One country that is annoyed by our State Department’s practice of evaluating the human rights situation in other countries is China. In “retaliation” for our report, China issues its own report, which describes a litany of human rights abuses in the United States.
A related issue is whether–if the number of asylum cases form a particular allied country increased–that country could raise the issue diplomatically in order to curtail asylum grants. Theoretically, asylum should be independent of politics, but the Forward article raises the example of Israeli conscientious objectors who received asylum in Canada. Apparently, “Canada has approved dozens of asylum requests from individuals claiming political persecution by Israel since 2000.” According to the Forward, in 2006, the Israeli government protested Canada’s asylum policies. And in the past two years the number of Israelis receiving asylum in Canada has declined. If this is correct, and the decline in asylum grants is related to the Israeli protest, it raises serious concerns about the integrity of the Canadian asylum system.
Another question raised by these asylum cases is, how the heck do you get granted asylum from a country like New Zealand or the UK? My guess is that these cases involve very special circumstances, like victims of human trafficking who have not received adequate protection, or maybe sexual orientation cases where the person was subject to severe abuse. Another possibility is that the Immigration Judge and the DHS attorney agreed to grant asylum in order to address an otherwise inequitable situation. For example, I once had a case where my client was convicted of an aggravated felony. She had been here for many years, had a family with a special needs child, and it was obvious that the only reason for her conviction was the incompetence of her criminal lawyer (her crime was very minor). Although it was pretty clear that she did not qualify for withholding of removal, the IJ would have granted relief to resolve the situation. Unfortunately, the DHS attorney did not agree. Had the attorney agreed, the client would have received relief, even though she really did not qualify. Maybe something similar is happening in some of the asylum cases at issue here.
Asylum cases from Western democracies are relatively rare. But there are enough such cases to help prove the adage, no country is safe for everyone all the time.
The Home School Legal Defense Association has set up a program to match foreign home schoolers who have fled persecution in their homelands with host families in the United States. From the HSLDA website:
Unfortunately, there are a number of countries around the world where homeschooling is actively opposed and where foreign governments seek to stamp out fledgling homeschool movements. In particular, Brazil, Germany, and Sweden are aggressively persecuting homeschoolers. Yet, brave families living in these three countries still choose to homeschool their children—in spite of intense persecution in the form of punishing fines, criminal prosecution, or the loss of custody of their children. In an increasing number of cases, families are forced to flee their homelands in the face of this aggressive, government-sponsored persecution. HSLDA has reported widely on the plight of these homeschoolers. We recently won political asylum for the Romeike family from Germany. Sadly, the United States government has chosen to appeal this ruling.
