Scottish Ministers are preparing to flex their muscles with Westminster over asylum issues and are actively exploring what influence they can bring to bear on the controversial subject.
The new approach was disclosed yesterday as another family was detained by immigration officers in a dawn raid - believed to be the second enforced removal from a home since the new administration was formed in May.
Mohammed Arshad and his wife Kishwer were detained with their three teenage children from their home in the Red Road flats in Glasgow and taken to Dungavel asylum removal centre in Lanarkshire. The Pakistani family are understood to have been in Scotland for six years but have had their application for asylum rejected.
The issue of dawn raids flared up under the previous administration, when Jack McConnell, as the then First Minister, intervened by seeking a new protocol with his Westminster counterparts on the issue. Though asylum is a reserved matter, the logic underpinning this was that the welfare of children is not.
A spokesman for the Scottish Executive yesterday indicated that it is likely to take a similar approach. He said: "The Scottish Executive is opposed to the practice of dawn raids and believes that asylum seekers must be treated humanely, particularly when children are involved. Asylum seeker children have the same rights as other children.
"Scottish ministers are now considering what the Scottish government can do to ensure that the welfare of children is paramount."
Since the row over dawn raids first broke in Scotland, more families have been detained at immigration offices when signing in at their regular weekly appointments. A Home Office spokesman said yesterday that detentions at asylum seekers' houses would usually only take place after they had been assessed to be at risk of absconding or had failed to report.
He added: "Enforced removal is always a last resort."
The practice of using dawn raids is also opposed by the Scottish Refugee Council.
Sally Daghlian, the charity's chief executive, yesterday urged the Home Office to adopt removal policies which did not impinge the rights of children.
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