Congressional Republicans have advanced a bill that would grant asylum to up to 500 people per year who've been "persecuted" in their home countries where home-schooling is illegal.
I'd call that ridiculous, but it gets better.
The same bill that would carve a path to asylum for home-schoolers would also make it more difficult to seek asylum for those who've fled their home countries because they might be murdered.
The bill also includes a number of provisions to limit asylum claims generally, including prohibiting unaccompanied alien children (UAC), like the ones who crossed the southern U.S. border last year, from applying for asylum if “such child may be removed to a safe third country;” increasing the number of full-time immigration judges and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lawyers; and raising the standards for children to prove that they would be threatened if they were deported.
Persecution of home-schoolers may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about children fleeing Central America and it undoubtedly wasn't for the House Judiciary Committee either.
The legislation was apparently inspired by home-schoolers who've fled Germany where home-schooling has been banned for nearly a century.
Taken at face value, this bill would open pathways to asylum for German or other European children and families while closing pathways for Central American children and families.
I doubt I need to spell out the implications for you.