Letter: Dungavel policy

Your leader, "Missing the point of principle over Dungavel" (2 October), misses a key point of principle in the handling of family cases. Every family we deal with can avoid detention by accepting our laws and by returning voluntarily; in most cases with support from the International Organisation for Migration to do so and to help re-establish themselves back home.

Asylum appeals are decided not by the Home Office, but by our courts. When the courts decide a family does not qualify for asylum and the family ignores that decision the UK Border Agency has a duty to enforce the law.

Prevarication and obstruction of the law by a family to stay in the UK illegally is not a principle the law should recognise. It penalises the compliant and rewards defiance of our laws and our courts.

The coalition government is committed to ending the detention of children for immigration purposes and the UK Border Agency is working to find an alternative.

But the government has also made it clear the ending of detention in these circumstances should not compromise the need to remove people who have no right to be in this country.

Phil Taylor

UK Border Agency

Brand Street

Glasgow