A  CAMPAIGNING church minister in Glasgow has condemned the holding of migrant children in cages in the USA as “barbaric”.

Rev Brian Casey, from Springburn Parish Church, who is campaigning to allow a 10 year-old orphan to be allowed to stay in Scotland, said the practice is the opposite of the principles of liberty the USA claims to be founded on and to uphold.

He spoke as Theresa May said images of migrant children in America being 'caged' is "deeply disturbing".

The issue of children held in cages was raised with the Prime Minister by SNP leader Ian Blackford.

Pictures emerged of children as young as under two being separated from their mothers and held in 'cages' in a detention centre close to the border with Mexico.

The SNP Westminster leader said, "Infants as young as 18 months were caged like animals."

Theresa May said: The practice of children held in what appears to be cages is , not something I agree with.

She added she “wholly and unequivocally said that is wrong.”

Rev Casey said: “I, along with most right-minded people think this is a shocking and horrific form of barbarism that will return to haunt us in years to come.”

He added: “The country has been built on the words inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty which says ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me.

“And yet, here we are in a situation where the huddled masses yearning to breathe free are huddled in cages, crying for their mothers.

“Put there by the society they thought called on them to be free.”

Rev Casey is calling on the Home Office to grant asylum to Giorgi Kakava, from Sprinburn who is facing deportation to Georgia with his Gran Ketino Baikhadze who looks after him after the death of his mother Sopio earlier this year, before her asylum claim could be processed.

Rev Casey said: “He was three when he and his mother fled to Scotland which is now the only place he has to call home after his mother died following a long illness.

“His only comfort now is his loving grandmother and the great City of Glasgow which is his home.”