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Masquerading as CAS Workers
April 4, 2014 permalink
On April 2 six adult members of Lev Tahor were arrested and five children went into care of Chatham-Kent children's aid. The children were returned to Lev Tahor later the same day. Meanwhile, the six children and three adults who escaped to Guatemala have been granted three months leave to stay in the country (and seek permanency). Two news articles are enclosed along with Facebook comments by Lev Tahor friend and visitor Lee Bolton.
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Six Lev Tahor members arrested
A Lev Tahor woman is arrested and placed into custody during a raid in Chatham on April 2, 2014.Photo Joel HelbrantsGuidy Mamann, a Toronto lawyer representing the Lev Tahor, told the CKReview this afternoon that a total of six adult members of the Lev Tahor were arrested in the raid today in Chatham. An unspecified number of children were temporarily placed with Chatham-Kent Children’s Services (CKCS), however, according to Mamann the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) requested the children be returned to suitable members of the community. CKCS complied and at around 5 p.m. all the children were back living with the Lev Tahor.
Mamann said none of the arrests were criminal or connected to any child abuse claims. Those subject to arrest had over-stayed their visa and face a pending immigration hearing to resolve their status in Canada.
The arrest warrants were for seven Lev Tahor adults. Five of those adults were found within the community today. A sweep of the community by CBSA was conducted to ensure everyone had proper immigration status. One person not listed on the warrant was arrested by CBSA for over-staying a visa and two are still at large. The Lev Tahor members under arrest may be released by the CBSA within 48 hours on their own recognizance, if not then they will appear before an immigration judge to decide if they can be trusted upon their release.
Children of two families were subject to being placed under the guardianship of the CKCS. Temporarily some of the children were removed and taken to the CKCS building. “After the kids were grabbed we brought to the attention of CBSA that the children have a grandparent in the village,” said Mamann. “The CBSA director let the CKCS know and asked for the children to be placed within the community. CKCS confirmed they interviewed the grandmother for one family and she was deemed suitable to take the children. For the second family the wife was placed under arrest and the husband was not in the village. CKCS were asked to take care of the children. CBSA, understanding the preciousness of the children, asked CAS to find someone else. Again CAS did find someone suitable and those children were returned. No children were left with CKCS.” Mamann said he wished to commend the CBSA for working towards having the children returned and his heart would have been broken if the children were taken by CKCS.
“These people came to Canada to have a peaceful life. Their mistake was settling in Quebec where their rights to home schooling is far more restricted than in Ontario”, Mamann said. “In Quebec they have a mandatory curriculum that forces teaching French and evolution, or sexual topics that do not agree with Lev Tahor’s beliefs.” Such regulations do not exist in Ontario, leading Mamann to suggest the Lev Tahor would have been better off moving to Ontario first. “I have never heard in my life of a Jewish community who abuses their children,” Mamann added. “If the parents are deported then the children would go with their parents, at their parents discretion, even if they were born in Canada.”
Source: CKReview
Lee Bolton
What a heart breaking scene today on highway 40. Kids violently apprehended by the Nazis masquerading as "child protection workers" and now 5 innocent children traumatized beyond belief. All the while the Nazis had a smug look on their ugly motherfucking faces. Apparently some of the local police and immigration thought this was a feel good party...laughing and hamming it up on our tax dollar while children and families were being torn apart and forever changed. FUCKERS! So much more I'd like to say but we'll let the pictures and videos tell the entire story in due time.
They denied them a lot of rights. First one, denied them legal counsel. not once but twice. CAS has also stated in the court transcript that they don't believe some of the families understand English very well and therefor may not have understood they couldn't leave the country, but yet CAS SHOWED UP THERE TODAY WITHOUT AN INTERPRETER AND MADE THEM SIGN AGREEMENTS obviously without their lawyer present. The[y] told the families if they don't sign them, they wouldn't return the five children they apprehended today.
Source: Facebook, Lee Bolton
Lee Bolton
Children of two families were subject to being placed under the guardianship of the CKCS. Temporarily some of the children were removed and taken to the CKCS building. “After the kids were grabbed we brought to the attention of CBSA that the children have a grandparent in the village,” said Mamann. “The CBSA director let the CKCS know and asked for the children to be placed within the community. CKCS confirmed they interviewed the grandmother for one family and she was deemed suitable to take the children. For the second family the wife was placed under arrest and the husband was not in the village. CKCS were asked to take care of the children. CBSA, understanding the preciousness of the children, asked CAS to find someone else. Again CAS did find someone suitable and those children were returned. No children were left with CKCS.” Mamann said he wished to commend the CBSA for working towards having the children returned and his heart would have been broken if the children were taken by CKCS.
It was disgusting Fran....brought adults including a reporter to tears. Thankfully the immigration have some compassion and common sense where the fucking NAZIs masquerading as cas workers don't.
On a good note, all the children have been returned. One member has gone back to the States to apply for the proper visa. Two adults have been returned and three being held for a hearing tomorrow. The really sick part is, they were working with Immigration to get all their papers in order. It's not something they had any control over. Once your visa expires you have to reapply, which is what the appointment was for on March 17th but got cancelled and a swoop and scoop occurred instead. DISGUSTING!
The other suspicious point is, the Border agents were using pictures that the Nazis (masquerading as CAS workers) had taken of the Lev Tahor when they first arrived with their permission. But yet the Nazis (masquerading as CAS workers) claim and swear they didn't give the Border Agents those pictures.
I was so proud of those boys out there yesterday! Screaming and pointing their fingers at Garnet Eskritt and Jen Hart and calling them SS, Nazis and saying "shame on you", they stood their ground and locked the stupid fucking Nazis (masquerading as CAS workers) out of the school and their place of worship. It was great.
That community has more guts, heart, strength and loyalty to their right of freedom than all of Chatham Kent combined. We could learn a little somethin something from them.
Source: Facebook, Lee Bolton
Lee Bolton That's nothing. They were blatantly denied their right to legal counsel. The lawyer was four feet away from one of the people they arrested and the border agents wouldn't allow him to speak with him. They stated that he needed to have it in writing. hahahahahahaha
Source: Facebook, Lee Bolton
Lev Tahor members in Guatemala can stay up to 3 months
Embassy visit in Guatemala City no longer a condition of stay in Central American country
The Lev Tahor family that left Canada for Guatemala in early March is allowed to stay there with no special conditions — for now.
Uriel Goldman, the spokesman for the Lev Tahor group living in Chatham, Ont., confirmed Wednesday that the family no longer has to go to the Canadian embassy in Guatemala City as a condition of its stay in Central America.
The family is now permitted to stay in the country for up to three months, as stipulated by the Guatemala’s immigration and visa rules.
The group of three adults and six children landed in Guatemala on March 4 after they left their homes in Chatham, Ont., amid a custody battle between members of Lev Tahor and Chatham-Kent Children’s Services.
The family entered Guatemala via a transfer in Mexico City, while another group connecting through Trinidad and Tobago got stopped and sent back to Canada.
A previous judgment rendered by a Guatemalan court prevented Canadian and local authorities from seizing the children on an existing order from Canada. Judge Mariela de Leon ruled there was insufficient evidence to proceed with a removal order.
Originally settled in Quebec, the entire sect fled the province in November while in the midst of a custody battle with Quebec's Youth Protection Services.
Members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect are expected back in a Chatham court regarding the custody issue on April 4.
Source: CBC
Another article gives the whereabouts of the Lev Tahor children who fled Ontario last month. Six returned from Trinidad are in foster care, two have returned from Calgary and six remain in Guatemala.
When a work of art is in dispute, a sheriff can put it in safekeeping while lawyers argue over ownership. Judges, including Chatham judge Lynda Templeton, covet the same safekeeping of children before their court. Courts refuse to recognize that it is impossible to lock children away during litigation without harming them.
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Justice Lynda Templeton delivers a message through parents to the sect’s leaders, saying they can’t be trusted
A member of the ultra-orthodox Lev Tahor sect walks across the roadway leading into their enclave at Spurgeon's Villa, north of Chatham, Ont., while Chatham-Kent police keep watch over the community on Wednesday, March 5, 2014.VICKI GOUGH/ THE CHATHAM DAILY NEWS/ QMI AGENCYCHATHAM - A judge tore a strip Friday off a runaway ultra-orthodox Jewish family that fled Canada before a child protection hearing, warning she “can’t trust you will not take off again.”
Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton told the parents to tell Lev Tahor leaders who are making the Jewish sect’s decisions to stop interfering with their children’s legal rights.
“The conduct of the community has not raised any trust that you will remain in the jurisdiction of this court,” she told the parents at an appeal hearing. “I can guarantee you will obtain fair hearings, but you must allow the court to do its work.”
It’s the second time an Ontario judge has given the group a legal smackdown for flouting court orders and pulling up stakes.
Fourteen children from two families were ordered into temporary foster care in Quebec.
The family before Templeton, its six kids now in foster care under an emergency order she made last month, were hauled back to Canada from Trinidad after taking off just days before a March 5 court date.
Two others, a 17-year-old mother and her baby, were returned from Calgary.
Another family with six kids remains in Guatemala, where they fled, in immigration limbo.
Taking off has become Lev Tahor’s signature move.
The group of more than 200 fled Ste. Agathe-des-Monts, Que., last November, as a child welfare investigation closed in, settling near Chatham. Their late-night exodus came amid allegations — not proven in court — of child neglect and abuse by the anti-Zionist sect, including of forced marriages of girls as young as 14, and providing limited schooling.
Local authorities won a bid to enforce the Quebec order in February, when another Chatham judge — Justice Stephen Fuerth — said the group’s actions had “placed these children at further risk of harm.”
He ordered the affected members to stay put during an appeal period.
Blacked-out portions of Templeton’s emergency order to seize the 14 children, which the media were allowed to review Friday, show the families had told child welfare officials they were aware of the March 5 court date and would be there. But on March 4, they had disappeared.
Templeton was told one family was in Trinidad, another had flown to Mexico City and then Guatemala.
The young mother and her child were believed to have crossed into the U.S. through Buffalo.
Templeton, hearing Lev Tahor’s appeal Friday of Fuerth’s order as the parents listened through a Hebrew translator, said her biggest concern is parental accountability. “Flight and departure are very serious concerns,” she said.
Parents, she said, have both moral and legal obligations to their kids in Canada — and that applies to everyone.
It’s imperative the families stay in the jurisdiction, as the court orders, she said.
“To me your children are not Lev Tahor children — they’re just children” with the same rights as any others, she said.
And, she added, the allegations are that “the parents are not fulfilling their legal obligations.”
She said it’s “frustrating” the group’s leadership seems to rule, regardless of the court’s goal to protect kids and families.
“No matter what the leaders say, I’m not interested,” she said, adding that must be made “abundantly clear” to Lev Tahor leaders.
“Have I made myself clear?” she said.
Templeton ordered the local child-welfare agency to arrange supervised access to the children starting this weekend.
“That access has to be supervised,” she said, citing the parents’ conduct and their group’s leadership.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Tuesday: Case returns to a Chatham court to deal with parental access to the kids.
Wednesday: In Chatham, group’s appeal continues of decision upholding child-seizure order.
Unclear: When appeal decision will be made.
REACTION
To the judge’s remarks Friday:
“For me, they were making kind of a mockery of justice in trying to leave Ontario.”
— Denis Baraby, Quebec youth protection official
"No comment"
— Uriel Goldman, a Lev Tahor leader
Source: Chatham Daily News
Addendum: The Lev Tahor children in custody will be denied a Passover visit with their family.
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Lev Tahor children denied Passover visit
An Ontario Court of Justice Judge has denied the request for two Lev Tahor children to return to the community for Passover, citing concerns over a flight risk presented by the community leader who would host them.
CHATHAM, ONT.—An Ontario Court of Justice judge has denied a request for two Lev Tahor children to spend Passover with members of the community, citing a concern over flight risk raised by the lawyer for Chatham-Kent Children’s Services.
William Sullivan, the lawyer representing two children who were apprehended and placed in foster care, said the family of Mayer Rosner, a community leader in the controversial ultra-orthodox Jewish sect, was willing to host them for three days during Passover.
“They are prepared to come here, participate in Passover, and if ordered, to return,” said Sullivan of the two children. “I said to my children clients when I saw them on Sunday, I said I want you to be the engineers of building this small bridge. I want you to, if this court was to permit you, to come to Chatham to spend Passover on the days that I’ve mentioned … to show the court that you will respect it.”
But Loree Hodgson-Harris, lawyer for CKCS, alleged Rosner played a role in the flight of the families that prompted the emergency order.
“Mayer Rosner is one of the community leaders that the society has concerns with,” said Hodgson-Harris, who said she was not given enough time to fully respond to the request. “The circumstances of this case involve parents fleeing the jurisdiction in the face of a court order. The evidence will be that it was with the assistance of the community leaders and in particular Mayer Rosner. The long and the short of it is that it’s much more complicated than the girls spending a few days in the community.”
Justice Lucy Glenn ruled that the two children could have access to the other children in care in Toronto and visits from their parents, but would not be returned to the community for Passover.
Glenn also ordered that the parents of the children be allowed eight hours per week of supervised visits. Chatham-Kent Children’s Services agreed to pay part of the cost required for the parents to travel to Toronto where the children are in care.
Glenn refused to release any of the documents filed with the court Tuesday. It’s not known exactly what the record contains, but one element filed by a lawyer for some of the children is an affidavit from a “clinical investigator.” A lawyer for the Toronto Star will fight for access to the court record Wednesday.
The two girls are part of a group of eight children apprehended after a March 5 emergency order. The court found that 14 children were taken out of the region of Chatham-Kent contrary to an order that they remain. Eight of the children were apprehended and placed with Jewish families in Toronto, while six remain in Guatemala with their parents.
The identities of the children and their parents are protected by a publication ban.
Child protection authorities in Quebec have documented allegations of abuse, underage marriage and a substandard education regime in the sect. The group fled Quebec en masse ahead of an order for the removal of 14 children to foster care. An Ontario court upheld that order, but allowed a 30-day stay for the families to appeal. On the day that appeal was scheduled to be held, it was discovered the children had been removed from Chatham-Kent.
The sect has categorically denied any allegations of abuse and says the Quebec case was solely related to its religious-only education.
The appeal hearing is scheduled to resume Wednesday.
Source: Toronto Star
