From: Human Events
The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family deported.
The fate of Uwe and Hannelore Romeikie – along with their six children – now rests with the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – after the Dept. of Homeland Security said they don’t deserve asylum.
Neither the Justice Dept. nor the Dept. of Homeland Security returned calls seeking comment.
“The Obama administration is basically saying there is no right to home school anywhere,” said Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association. “It’s an utter repudiation of parental liberty and religious liberty.”
The Justice Dept. is arguing that German law banning home schooling does not violate the family’s human rights.
“They are trying to send a family back to Germany where they would certainly lose custody of their children,” Farris told Fox News. “Our government is siding with Germany.”
Farris said the Germans ban home schools because “they don’t want to have religious and philosophical minorities in their country.”
“That means they don’t want to have significant numbers of people who think differently than what the government thinks,” he said. “It’s an incredibly dangerous assertion that people can’t think in a way that the government doesn’t approve of.”
He said the Justice Dept. is backing that kind of thinking and arguing ‘it is not a human rights violation.”
Farris said he finds great irony that the Obama administration is releasing thousands of illegal aliens – yet wants to send a family seeking political asylum back to Germany.
“Eleven million people are going to be allowed to stay freely – but this one family is going to be shipped back to Germany to be persecuted,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
The fear of persecution is why an immigration judge granted the family political asylum in 2010.
German authorities demanded the family stop home schooling. They faced thousands of dollars in fines and they initially took away their children in a police van.
German state constitutions require children attend public schools. Parents who don’t comply face punishment ranging from fines to prison time. The nation’s highest appellate court ruled in 2007 that in some cases children could be removed from their parents’ care.
“Families that want to have an alternative education can’t get it in Germany,” Farris said. “Even the private schools have to teach public school curriculum.”
After authorities threatened to remove permanent custody from the Christian couple – they decided to move to the United States.
Uwe, a classically-trained pianist, relocated their brood to a small farm in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains in eastern Tennessee.
“We are very happy here to be able to freely follow our conscience and to home school our children,” he told Fox News. “Where we live in Tennessee is very much like where we lived in Germany.”
Uwe said he was extremely disappointed that their petition to seek asylum was appealed by the Obama administration.
“If we go back to Germany we know that we would be prosecuted and it is very likely the Social Services authorities would take our children from us,” he said.
Uwe said German schools were teaching children to disrespect authority figures and used graphic words to describe sexual relations. He said the state believed children must be “socialized.”
“The German schools teach against our Christian values,” he said. “Our children know that we home school following our convictions and that we are in God’s hands. They understand that we are doing this for their best – and they love the life we are living in America on our small farm.”
Farris said Americans should be outraged over the way the Obama administration has treated the Romeike family – and warned it could have repercussions for families that home school in this nation.
“The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children has been at the pinnacle of human rights,” he said. “But not in this country.”
Showing posts with label Homeland Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homeland Security. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Monday, June 25, 2012
Homeland Security suspends immigration agreements with Arizona police
From: Washington Times
The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws, and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police.
Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named, told reporters they expect to see an increase in the number of calls they get from Arizona police — but that won’t change President Obama’s decision to limit whom the government actually tries to detain and deport.
“We will not be issuing detainers on individuals unless they clearly meet our defined priorities,” one official said in a telephone briefing.
The official said that despite the increased number of calls, which presumably means more illegal immigrants being reported, the Homeland Security Department is unlikely to detain a significantly higher number of people and won’t be boosting personnel to handle the new calls.
“We do not plan on putting additional staff on the ground in Arizona,” the official said.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Arizona may not impose its own penalties for immigration violations, but it said state and local police could check the legal status of those they have reasonable suspicion to believe are in the country illegally.
That means police statewide can immediately begin calling to check immigration status — but federal officials are likely to reject most of those calls.
Federal officials said they’ll still perform the checks as required by law but will respond only when someone has a felony conviction on his or her record. Absent that, ICE will tell the local police to release the person.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said the court’s decision frees police up to perform immigration checks. In anticipation of the ruling, she issued an executive order calling for guidance to be issued to every police department on how to fairly carry out the law.
“We will move forward, instructing law enforcement to begin practicing what the United States Supreme Court has upheld,” she said.
But the Obama administration is under pressure from immigrant-rights groups to cut down on the number of people it is deporting and has taken a number of steps to try to limit deportations of rank-and-file illegal immigrants and focus instead on those with criminal records or repeated immigration violations.
Last week, Mr. Obama said he would halt deportations for most illegal immigrants under 30 who were brought here as children.
On Monday the administration officials also said they are ending the seven 287(g) task force agreements with Arizona law enforcement officials, which proactively had granted some local police the powers to enforce immigration laws.
The task forces, named for the section of law that allows them, have proved popular among many localities but have been a political headache for the Obama administration, with immigrant-rights groups saying they led to abuses.
On Monday the administration officials said they had concluded the seven agreements they had signed with various departments in Arizona weren’t working and took the Supreme Court’s ruling as a chance to scrap them.
The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws, and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police.
Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named, told reporters they expect to see an increase in the number of calls they get from Arizona police — but that won’t change President Obama’s decision to limit whom the government actually tries to detain and deport.
“We will not be issuing detainers on individuals unless they clearly meet our defined priorities,” one official said in a telephone briefing.
The official said that despite the increased number of calls, which presumably means more illegal immigrants being reported, the Homeland Security Department is unlikely to detain a significantly higher number of people and won’t be boosting personnel to handle the new calls.
“We do not plan on putting additional staff on the ground in Arizona,” the official said.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Arizona may not impose its own penalties for immigration violations, but it said state and local police could check the legal status of those they have reasonable suspicion to believe are in the country illegally.
That means police statewide can immediately begin calling to check immigration status — but federal officials are likely to reject most of those calls.
Federal officials said they’ll still perform the checks as required by law but will respond only when someone has a felony conviction on his or her record. Absent that, ICE will tell the local police to release the person.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said the court’s decision frees police up to perform immigration checks. In anticipation of the ruling, she issued an executive order calling for guidance to be issued to every police department on how to fairly carry out the law.
“We will move forward, instructing law enforcement to begin practicing what the United States Supreme Court has upheld,” she said.
But the Obama administration is under pressure from immigrant-rights groups to cut down on the number of people it is deporting and has taken a number of steps to try to limit deportations of rank-and-file illegal immigrants and focus instead on those with criminal records or repeated immigration violations.
Last week, Mr. Obama said he would halt deportations for most illegal immigrants under 30 who were brought here as children.
On Monday the administration officials also said they are ending the seven 287(g) task force agreements with Arizona law enforcement officials, which proactively had granted some local police the powers to enforce immigration laws.
The task forces, named for the section of law that allows them, have proved popular among many localities but have been a political headache for the Obama administration, with immigrant-rights groups saying they led to abuses.
On Monday the administration officials said they had concluded the seven agreements they had signed with various departments in Arizona weren’t working and took the Supreme Court’s ruling as a chance to scrap them.
Friday, April 15, 2011
White House draft bill expands DHS cyber responsibilities
From: News Radio 1500 AM
Under a White House plan, the Homeland Security Department will have far-reaching oversight over all civilian agency computer networks.
The proposal would codify much of the administration's memo from July 2010 expanding DHS's cyber responsibilities for civilian networks.
The White House, however, is taking those responsibilities further, according to a source familiar with the document. The administration drafted a legislative proposal to give DHS many, if not all, of the same authorities for the .gov networks that the Defense Department has for the .mil networks.
Federal News Radio recently viewed a draft copy of the legislative proposal.
"I have to question why the Executive branch is writing legislation," said the source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. "This is not a proposal or white paper like the White House usually sends to Capitol Hill. This is the actual legislation."
The source said the 100-page document is going through interagency review. DHS sent the document around to agencies late last Friday and asked for comments by Monday. The source said few agencies had time to take a hard look at the document, especially in light of the possible government shutdown.
Sources on Capitol Hill and in government confirmed the White House is working on such a proposal.
A DHS spokesman said the agency doesn't comment on pending legislation.
Incorporates Senate cyber bill, OMB memo
The bill would bring together legislative proposals by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), as well as Office of Management and Budget's memo from July 2010 expanding DHS's authorities.
"The cybersecurity legislation being developed in Congress is a large, complex bill with wide-ranging implications, and several Senate committees are involved in its drafting," said committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips. "The two primary committees of jurisdiction - Homeland Security and Commerce - completed the bulk of their work last August and ironed out several remaining differences by the end of March this year.
However, other committees and the White House are critical to the completion of this bill."
In a statement, Lieberman said, "We have been waiting with great anticipation for the White House to weigh in on the best way to protect the American people from catastrophic cyber attacks. If the White House is on the same path we're on, the Senate should be able to approve comprehensive cybersecurity legislation this year."
Collins said in a floor statement in February about the new bill that the legislation would make DHS a strong partner in the process of securing agency networks, but the White House will be the central point for all cybersecurity across the government.
The Lieberman, Collins and Carper bill would establish a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications in DHS.
Under a White House plan, the Homeland Security Department will have far-reaching oversight over all civilian agency computer networks.
The proposal would codify much of the administration's memo from July 2010 expanding DHS's cyber responsibilities for civilian networks.
The White House, however, is taking those responsibilities further, according to a source familiar with the document. The administration drafted a legislative proposal to give DHS many, if not all, of the same authorities for the .gov networks that the Defense Department has for the .mil networks.
Federal News Radio recently viewed a draft copy of the legislative proposal.
"I have to question why the Executive branch is writing legislation," said the source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. "This is not a proposal or white paper like the White House usually sends to Capitol Hill. This is the actual legislation."
The source said the 100-page document is going through interagency review. DHS sent the document around to agencies late last Friday and asked for comments by Monday. The source said few agencies had time to take a hard look at the document, especially in light of the possible government shutdown.
Sources on Capitol Hill and in government confirmed the White House is working on such a proposal.
A DHS spokesman said the agency doesn't comment on pending legislation.
Incorporates Senate cyber bill, OMB memo
The bill would bring together legislative proposals by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), as well as Office of Management and Budget's memo from July 2010 expanding DHS's authorities.
"The cybersecurity legislation being developed in Congress is a large, complex bill with wide-ranging implications, and several Senate committees are involved in its drafting," said committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips. "The two primary committees of jurisdiction - Homeland Security and Commerce - completed the bulk of their work last August and ironed out several remaining differences by the end of March this year.
However, other committees and the White House are critical to the completion of this bill."
In a statement, Lieberman said, "We have been waiting with great anticipation for the White House to weigh in on the best way to protect the American people from catastrophic cyber attacks. If the White House is on the same path we're on, the Senate should be able to approve comprehensive cybersecurity legislation this year."
Collins said in a floor statement in February about the new bill that the legislation would make DHS a strong partner in the process of securing agency networks, but the White House will be the central point for all cybersecurity across the government.
The Lieberman, Collins and Carper bill would establish a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications in DHS.
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