Officials: No more migrant buses for Southern Calif.

MURRIETA, Calif. — Following a string of contentious protests in Southern California, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Thursday it will no longer send busloads of undocumented immigrants to San Diego or El Centro.

The immigrants — mainly families and unaccompanied children from Central America — were being bused to facilities in San Diego and El Centro every three days to alleviate overwhelmed detention facilities in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

"It looks like with the almost 1,000 (undocumented immigrants) processed between El Centro and San Diego, for now (it) helps," said Lombardo Amaya, union president of the El Centro chapter of the National Border Patrol Council in a message to The Desert Sun. "This does not mean that we will not continue to receive more loads in the future."

Border Patrol spokesman Paul Carr said the agency has reduced its backlog in south Texas and is now able to process more migrants there.

Carr said the decision to discontinue transfers to San Diego and El Centro was not a result of the ongoing protests that have taken place in Murrieta, Calif.