Any plans that Lev Tahor may leave Canada for Central America have been halted because Quebec’s child welfare agency still has warrants outstanding to apprehend all 129 kids in the Lev Tahor community, their lawyer says.

Immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann said it wasn’t known until two weeks ago that the Quebec department of youth protection obtained a court order to apprehend all the children who fled Ste. Agathe-des-Monts, Que., last fall for Chatham.

More than 200 members of Lev Tahor bolted from Quebec while authorities there investigated allegations of child abuse and neglect. The group says the allegations are unfounded.

Details of the warrants for the other children weren’t discovered until some Lev Tahor families made passport applications for their Canadian children.

That information was never disclosed to any Ontario court that weighed whether 14 children subject to an initial Quebec foster-care order should be returned to Quebec, Mamann said.

The outstanding warrants have scuppered any applications for Canadian passports necessary to leave the country.

It was believed any issues with the Quebec authorities were finished. Last month, Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton said it wasn’t in the best interests of the children to be sent back to Quebec and away from their families. She ordered the children be placed in temporary foster care in Ontario.

Mamann said all the children under the order are likely to be reunited with their families by the end of May. They were apprehended after two families disobeyed an order to stay in Chatham. One family made it to Guatemala, while the other was arrested in Trinidad and returned to Canada.

There have been rumours the community is ready to leave Canada because of the scrutiny placed on their education standards and allegations for abuse.

Mamann said it’s true two of the community’s leaders, Mayer Rosner and Uriel Goldman, are in Guatemala but primarily for the birth of a grandson.

They also plan to look around the country to decide if it’s suitable for the anti-Zionist group to live there.

But no one is going anywhere until the children’s passport issues are resolved.

Mamann said the outstanding Quebec warrants have created a sticky situation for the families because parents, most of whom are American or Israeli, are about to have temporary visas about to expire but can’t leave because their children aren’t allowed to leave Canada.

He said there hasn’t been “a shred of proof that they have been neglected.”

The warrants weren’t put in place to ensure the children were protected, Mamann said. “It’s a question of politics.”

If there was real concern about the children’s safety, the Quebec authorities would defer to the investigation by Ontario child welfare authorities, he said.

(Source: Stratford Beach Herald)