Members of the Lev Tahor ultra-orthodox Jewish sect walk down a street in Chatham, Ont., Wednesday, March 5, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press

CHATHAM, Ont. - A spokeswoman for the Trinidad and Tobago government says immigration authorities there have met with Canadian Embassy officials about members of an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect at the centre of a child custody case.

According to a Lev Tahor member’s email to supporters, which was obtained by The Canadian Press, two families whose children were ordered removed from their custody left Canada for Guatemala, but some of the travellers were detained in Trinidad during a stopover.

The email says members of one family are American citizens and the others are Israeli citizens who were in Canada on work permits, so they dispute that they should be sent to Canada, instead they’re pushing to be allowed to travel on to Guatemala.

Marica Hope, a spokeswoman for Trinidad’s Ministry of National Security, says the Lev Tahor members are not being detained, as they are free to return to Canada, however officials are holding onto their passports.

Hope says Trinidad immigration authorities met with Canadian officials today to appraise them of “ongoing developments” and to consult on the way forward.

She says so far officials in Trinidad have not been shown “evidential proof” that the members of the group there are subject to a court order in Canada.

They were stopped after immigration officials found “inconsistencies” in the group’s statements, Hope said.

An Ontario judge ordered that the children be turned over to child welfare authorities in Quebec, where the community was based until they moved to Chatham, Ont., late last year amid a custody case.

The judge put that order on hold for 30 days to give the Lev Tahor members a chance to appeal, but as a condition of that stay the children were not allowed to be taken out of Chatham.

The email from the community member says the families went on “vacation” and were not eager to return willingly if their appeal of the order that 13 children be taken into custody doesn’t go their way.