Rumors had swirled among anti-immigration activists near a U.S. Border Patrol station in Southern California that the agency would try again to bus in some of the immigrants who have flooded across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Instead, by late Friday afternoon, they got dueling anti- and pro-immigration rallies.
The crowd of 200 outside the station in Murrieta waved signs and sometimes shouted at one another. One banner read: “Proud LEGAL American. It doesn’t work any other way.” Another countered: “Against illegal immigration? Great! Go back to Europe!”
Law enforcement officers separated the two sides, leaving enough space for a bus to drive into the station.
It was not certain, however, that any buses would arrive Friday. Because of security concerns, federal authorities have said, they will not publicize immigrant transfers among border patrol facilities.
Earlier this week, the city became the latest flashpoint in the intensifying immigration debate when a crowd of protesters waving American flags blocked buses carrying women and children who were flown from overwhelmed Texas facilities.
Federal authorities had hoped to process them at the station in Murrieta, about 55 miles north of downtown San Diego.
“This is a way of making our voices heard,” said Steve Prime, a resident of nearby Lake Elsinore. “The government’s main job is to secure our borders and protect us — and they’re doing neither.”
Supporters said the immigrants need to be treated as humans and that migrating to survive is not a crime.
“We’re celebrating the Fourth of July, and what a melting pot America is,” said Raquel Alvarado, a high school history teacher and Murrieta resident who chalked up the fear of migrants in the city of roughly 106,000 to discrimination.
“They don’t want to have their kids share the same classroom,” she said.
The city’s mayor, Alan Long, became a hero to those seeking stronger immigration policies with his criticism of the federal government’s efforts to handle the influx of thousands of immigrants, many of them mothers and children.
However, Murrieta officials tried to clarify Long’s comments, saying he was only asserting that the local Border Patrol station was not an appropriate location to process the migrants and was encouraging residents to contact their federal representatives.
The July 3 statement by City Manager Rick Dudley, suggesting that protesters had come from elsewhere in Southern California, expressed regret that the busloads of women and children had been forced to turn around.
“This was not victory,” he wrote. “It was a loss for the city of Murrieta, for the community that we live in and love. It made this extremely compassionate community look heartless and uncaring. That is NOT the Murrieta that we all know and love.”
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