Buses with migrant families rerouted amid protest in California

SAN DIEGO – Homeland Security buses carrying migrant children and families were rerouted Tuesday to a facility in San Diego after American flag-waving protesters blocked the group from reaching a suburban processing center.

The standoff in Murrieta came after Mayor Alan Long urged residents to complain to elected officials about the plan to transfer the Central American migrants to California to ease overcrowding of facilities along the Texas-Mexico border.

Many protesters held U.S. flags, while others held signs reading “stop illegal immigration,” and “illegals out!”

Many of the immigrants were detained while fleeing violence and extortion from gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

After the buses were blocked, federal authorities rerouted the vehicles to a freeway and then to a customs and border facility in San Diego within view of the Mexico border.

After the migrants are processed, Immigration and Customs Enforcement will decide who can be released while awaiting deportation proceedings.

Earlier in the day, a chartered plane landed in San Diego with 136 migrants on board, according to a federal Department of Homeland Security official who was not authorized to be named when speaking on the issue.

It was the first flight planned for California under the federal government’s effort to ease the crunch in the Rio Grande Valley.