ASYLUM campaigners have hit out at the Home Office after immigration officials carried out a dawn raid on a refugee’s home in Glasgow.

Activists from across Scotland gathered on Saturday to highlight the “abhorrent” treatment of those seeking refuge in Britain after it emerged that a home had been targeted on Friday. 

More than 30 people gather outside the Home Office in Glasgow on Saturday morning in a demonstration called by campaigners from the Maryhill Integration Network (MIN).

In such dawn raids, immigration officials arrive without warning, with asylum-seekers given just five minutes to pack before being removed to a detention centre.

The man targeted was left unaccompanied in hospital following the ordeal, suffering with chest pain, in extreme fear. He has since been warned that officers will return.

Pinar Aksu, MIN campaigner and development officer, said: “We do not know how long this process has been going on for.

“It is extremely concerning to find out people seeking asylum are being detained to be deported during a pandemic.

“The practice of dawn raiding is a traumatic process and experience, and it needs to end now.”

The Scottish Greens have hit out at the renewed use of the practice by the Home Office, describing it as “inhumane” and “especially inexcusable during a pandemic.”

The party’s Glasgow candidate, councillor Kim Long, said: “We need to be very clear that this is Tory politics in action: terrorising our friends and neighbours who call this city home.

“Dawn raids have no place here, and Glasgow will stand up to this abhorrent behaviour, as it has in the past.”

The Star understands that the Home Office expects people with no right to remain in the UK to leave voluntarily but will enforce their removal if they repeatedly refuse.

A spokesperson told the Star that Immigration Enforcement officers take the health and wellbeing of those in their care extremely seriously and a full risk assessment and consideration of any vulnerabilities is taken before any enforcement visit.