Homeschooling and Immigration – Canada

An article on The Globe and Mail site tells us about an Canadian immigration case:

They hid from German authorities, fled to Denmark and sought safety in Canada. All this for a chance to freely educate their children at home.

Now the German family will take their cause one step further when they appear before the Immigration and Refugee board in Alberta Tuesday [3/23/10] to request asylum on the grounds that they would be persecuted for home-schooling their children, and risk being locked up and losing their children if they return to their homeland. The hearing is closed, and a decision could take weeks or even months.

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The family packed their belongings and hid in Germany for three months, before making their way into Denmark. From there, they made contact with the Home School Legal Defense Association, a non-profit advocacy group in the United States that also has an office in Canada, who helped them travel to North America in April, 2007.

According to the article, the family’s lawyer is not dicslosing the family’s name. This is what the lawyer, Jean Munn, wants us to know:

But the family, who doesn’t want to be identified because they fear their two teenage boys will be taken away by German authorities, say it’s not about religion. “In this case, religion plays a role less important than reasons of conscience and reasons with respect to the medical well-being of these children,” Ms. Munn said.

Hiding their identity is fair enough, but is this case about religion, health care or homeschooling? When HSLDA control the information, truth succumbs to ideology. The political ideology HSLDA serves first and foremost has a stake in the upcoming US immigration debate.

Read the story here. The comments are worth scanning.

Tags: Canadian homeschooling, German homeschooling, homeschooling, homeschooling and immigration, HSLDA, Refugee board in Alberta

This entry was posted on March 22, 2010 at 9:50 am and is filed under International News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.