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Detention of children - UK Border Agency response to SNP
02 November 2009
The UK Border Agency has responded to the Scottish National Party's call for the detention of children to be ended.
Alan Kittle, the UK Border Agency's director of detention services, said:
'We do not want to detain families with children. However, when the independent courts have upheld our decision that they are not in need of protection, we expect them to leave the country voluntarily.
'We have a duty to enforce immigration laws, and detention is only ever used where families have failed to leave despite being given every opportunity, incentives and assistance to do so, in order to enforce their departure.'