THE First Minister told MSPs that now is not the time for the red carpet to be rolled out for Donald Trump when he visits the UK.

Nicola Sturgeon was reacting to the images of children being held in cages at detention centres in the USA this week.

While she welcomed the U turn on separating families, she urged caution because the children would still be detained with their parents.

Ms Sturgeon said that only Nigel Farage and his ilk would fail to be appalled at what the world saw when she said children were incarcerated in what “look, to all intents and purposes, like cages.”

That’s because they are cages. They don’t appear to be or look like cages. They are, and children are being caged.

Ms Sturgeon also raised issues with events in Italy where Roma people are being singled out and in Hungary where people assisting asylum seekers are being criminalised.

She is right to be appalled and right to speak out against what has been happening in America and in these other countries.

It can be tempting to think that because Donald Trump is in the White House and there is huge dislike of him and his policies here that attitudes in this country are healthier.

Just an our earlier and in a committee room below the debating chamber in Holyrood an academic from Strathclyde University was telling MSPs about research she and her colleagues had carried out with young people who had come to this country to make it their home.

The committee session was on bullying in schools and her testimony did not make for comfortable listening.

Dr Daniela Sime, a Reader in social policy at the university, told of a survey with 1000 young people.

It gave an insight into the lives of young people who have come here with their families, many fleeing violence and seeking safety throwing themselves at the mercy of our asylum system. Others migrated, as legally entitles as Brits are to go and live in the continent.

She told the MSPs on the committee 77% had experience racism or xenophobia and the majority of incidents happened in schools.

She said they were regularly branded with terms like “illegals” and “prostitutes” and also suffered physical attacks.

Most, she said did not report it because it happened every day and had become “normalised” leading to many to hide their nationality and ethnic identity.

Among this group, which included asylum seekers and Eastern European EU migrants most of whom identified as white, there were higher instances of mental health issues, attainment was lower for example among Polish children than Scottish and there was a higher rate of school abandonment.

The eastern Europeans and asylum seekers from African countries and Syria are just the latest wave of immigration in Glasgow.

Last week a memorial dedicated to the Irish and highland famines was unveiled in Glasgow. Both events led to mass migration and Glasgow was the final destination for many.

More than 150 year from that period of Irish migration, divisions remain.

When we are putting that red carpet back into the furniture storage, instead of rolling it out for President Trump, we may want to dig out a mirror and every now and then have a long hard look in it.