Amid rising concern over a surge of young immigrants crossing the border illegally, flag-waving protesters blocked three busloads of detainees in Riverside County on Tuesday, preventing them from reaching a Border Patrol processing station in Murrieta.
The buses, carrying about 140 detainees, turned around and headed back to a San Diego-area Border Patrol facility.
Police said about 100 to 150 people met the buses a few blocks away from the Border Patrol station, chanting "Go home" and "We want to be safe."
The detainees — many of them women and children from Central America — had crossed the border in Texas recently and were flown to San Diego by the Department of Homeland Security.The incident came one day after Long urged residents to protest the federal government's decision to move the recent immigrants — the first of what he said was to be a series of arrivals — to the facility in his city.
"Murrieta expects our government to enforce our laws, including the deportation of illegal immigrants caught crossing our borders, not disperse them into our local communities," Long said Monday. The city had defeated two previous attempts to send migrants to the facility, he said.
Roger Cotton, 49, said he drove up from San Diego to wave a flag outside the Border Patrol station.
"I wanted to say that I as an American citizen do not approve of this human disaster that the government has created," Cotton said. He said he believes the migrants who were supposed to be dropped off at the station would be a burden on an already strained system."Who's going to pay for them?" he asked. "What kind of criminality will happen?"
Cotton said he decided to go to Murrieta on his own and was surprised to find other protesters there.
He stood with a group of them on the side of the road, chanting "USA" and arguing with a group of counter-protesters who had come to support the immigrants.
Lupillo Rivera, 42, of Temecula, said he was driving by when he noticed the protest. He said somebody shouted that he was an illegal immigrant and should go home.
Rivera, a well-known Mexican banda singer who is a U.S. citizen, went home and returned with several of his friends and bandmates to confront the protesters.
"Our people cook your food," he shouted at them.
"We didn't ask for them to come here," one protester shot back.
Rivera, who is the brother of the late Mexican singer Jenni Rivera, said anybody who would turn away a busload of children was "not human."
"It doesn't matter where a child is from," he said. "He deserves respect and help because he's a child."
Local leaders were critical of the federal government's communication throughout the process, and said after Tuesday's protest that they had been given little notice about the arrivals.
"We were never given sufficient warning by the federal government," said Kim Davidson, a Murrieta city spokeswoman. "When people are scared and don't have all the information, they have a right to react."
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