Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Homeschoolers

Why this family got political asylum

Carl Kiilsgaard for TIME

Uwe Romeike and his wife, reflected in the glass, homeschool their children in Tennessee

Update Appended: March 1, 2010

The Romeikes are not your typical asylum seekers. They did not come to the U.S. to flee war or despotism in their native land. No, these music teachers left Germany because they didn't like what their children were learning in public school — and because homeschooling is illegal there.

"It's our fundamental right to decide how we want to teach our children," says Uwe Romeike, an Evangelical Christian and a concert pianist who sold his treasured Steinway to help pay for the move.

Romeike...

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