On 2 November, a group of protestors walked into the Home Office premises at Brand St, Glasgow, and occupied the reporting centre section of the building, forcing its closure for one working day.
The office was occupied in protest at the 'criminalisation' of asylum seekers under current immigration regulations, which require many asylum seekers in Glasgow to report in person weekly to this building. They may be finger printed and asked for identity verification. Paroled criminals are not subject to such a restrictive reporting schedule, but asylum seekers are.
On other occasions, demonstrators also protested heavy-handed tactics used by immigration officials and police when taking a family into detention. Families are routinely treated as criminals when they are arrested in ‘dawn raids’. Immigration officials and flak-jacketed police officers enter a family’s home early in the morning and take the family into detention. Males over 18 are handcuffed and transported in a caged van.
