'Illegal immigrants' sent home

The group were detained after roadside inquiries

Four of the people detained in Midlothian on suspicion of being illegal immigrants have been sent home.

They were members of a group of 20 foreigners found during a Department for Work and Pensions roadside check on the outskirts of Dalkeith, Midlothian last week.

Investigators were carrying out a routine inquiry into possible domestic benefit fraud involving casual farmworkers when they intercepted the 20-strong party.

Immigration officials were alerted and nine men and 11 women were detained,

Backgrounds examined

Of those detained, four were Lithuanians, eight were Latvians, one was Russian, three were Brazilians, one was Ukrainian and three were from Poland.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said four had been "removed" from Britain - two Polish men and two Lithuanian women - one of them a 13-year-old girl.

The rest of the group - according to the Home Office - are still in detention while their backgrounds are examined further.

The spokeswoman added that three of the group had claimed asylum.

A spokeswoman for the Benefits Agency said officials came across the group during an operation to crack down on agricultural workers who claim benefit while in work.

Agricultural workers

They stopped people during a road check on workers involved in picking and packing vegetables.

Twenty of them happened to be foreign nationals and so the information was passed on to immigration officials.

The spokeswoman said: "We are interested in finding out if people are working and claiming benefits and we do jobs like this on an ongoing basis.

"We were looking at agricultural workers and it was coincidence that we came across this group of people."