The Home Office must been called on to end the tactic of dawn raids to target individuals suspected of breaking harsh immigration rules.
Patrick Harvie spoke out after a family of refugees living in Glasgow was reportedly rounded-up and placed in a detention centre last week.
The Scottish Greens co-leader visited the Maryhill Integration Network in the north of the city today to hear about the charity's efforts to help asylum seekers.
Council bosses have been pushing the Home Office in London - which controls the UK's immigration system - for more than a year to make changes to the contract tendering process which sees private firms given responsibility for looking after asylum seekers.
Glasgow has been a designated "dispersal city" for more than two decades, which means those seeking asylum in the UK can be accommodated there under strict Home Office rules while their request is being processed.
Harvie said: "It is very alarming that the Home Office carried out a dawn raid on a family in Glasgow last week. The act of forcing people out of their home and incarcerating them at a detention facility is bad enough, but to do so during the pandemic is utterly inexcusable.
“Glaswegians have stood against dawn raids before, and we’ll do so again to protect our friends and neighbours from this institutionally racist Home Office.
“Scottish Greens won voting rights for refugees and we will do the same for asylum seekers. We are clear that instead of locking people that flee to this country up, we should be allowing them to contribute to our future.”
Asked by the Record what more could be done when powers are reserved to Westminster, Harvie said: "There are limits to what we can do right now, but we can offer emergency provision for those that have been made destitute.
"We can ensure that translation services are available when needed.. We want to ramp up pressure to ensure those kinds of services can be provided."
Lee Knifton, director of Mental Health Foundation Scotland, said: “People who live here as asylum seekers have already endured more challenging and traumatic circumstances than most of us can imagine.
"We know that asylum seekers are five times more likely to experience mental health problems and almost two thirds will have serious mental distress.
"To traumatise vulnerable people further in this most inhumane way is hugely damaging to their mental health, particularly when we are still in the midst of a global pandemic.
“Dawn raids do not only impact the individuals who are being targeted but all asylum seekers who live in fear of being next. The is a place where people are supposed to feel safe."
SNP council bosses in Glasgow have often been at loggerheads with the Home Office on the issue of asylum seekers since the party took power at the City Chambers in 2017.
The council had wanted to take control of the contract which houses refugees but a bid was ultimately abandoned when it became clear it would not be approved by Westminster.
