Two members of a Belgian family that has been fighting a deportation order were arrested in Ottawa on Saturday, while a third has gone into hiding.
Michel Van Hauve and his 17-year-old son, Blaise, were stopped during a routine traffic stop and arrested on a Canadian Border Services warrant.
According to media reports, someone in their van alerted Van Hauve's wife, Susan Myers, about the arrests. She was quoted as saying that not even her lawyer knows where to find her now.
The family came to Canada eight years ago on work and student visas.
Visas not renewed
Michel Van Hauve says immigration officials refused to renew their visas last August because of a shoplifting conviction against him when he was a teenager in Belgium.
A Canada-wide arrest warrant was issued in January for the family after they failed to report for their scheduled expulsion from the country.
At the time, a rural rights group called the Landowners movement took the family to an undisclosed location.
Two weeks later, Van Hauve, his wife and son returned to their farmhouse near Navan, a small farming community east of Ottawa, in hopes of resolving their case with authorities.
Myers said it's important that she stay in Canada to care for her son's 15-year-old girlfriend, a Canadian who's eight-months pregnant, because there is no one else to help.
The family's lawyer, Warren Creates, said he is hoping to go before a judge on Tuesday to have a detention review.
"It think Canadian people would be shocked if they learned tonight that tickets were bought for Blaise and Michel and they were deported right away to Belgium," he told CBC News.