California town turns away buses of detained immigrants

The national controversy over a surge of Central American immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border established a new battleground this week in a Southern California small town where angry crowds thwarted detained migrants from entering their community, CNN reported.

In a faceoff Tuesday with three buses carrying the migrants behind screened-off windows, the demonstrators chanted "Go back home!" and "USA" and successfully forced the coaches to leave Murrieta, CNN affiliate KFMB reported.

The buses instead took the 140 or so undocumented immigrants to U.S. processing centers at least 80 miles away, in the San Diego and El Centro areas, federal officials say.

Counter-protesters squared off with the demonstrators, and a shouting match erupted over the nation's immigration system, which recently has been overwhelmed with a tide of Central American minors illegally entering the United States alone or with other children.

A mix of poverty, violence and smugglers' false promises is prompting the Central American inflow.

Unlike undocumented Mexican migrants, who are often immediately deported, the U.S. government detains and processes the Central Americans, who are eventually released and given a month to report to immigration offices. Many never show up and join the nation's 11 million undocumented population, says the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing Border Patrol agents.

The Latin American immigrants rejected by Murrieta protesters were initially held in Texas, where U.S. facilities are so overflowing that detainees are sent to other states for processing.

The government doesn't have the room to shelter the children with adults: there's only one family immigration detention center, in Pennsylvania. To assist the unaccompanied children, President Barack Obama's administration opened shelters last month on three military bases because federal facilities more designed for adults were overrun with minors.

Tuesday's busloads of detained Central American immigrants didn't include any unaccompanied minors, said Murrieta Police Chief Sean Hadden, who put the number of protesters at 125. The children on the buses were apparently in the company of relatives or other adults, said an official with the National Border Patrol Council.