The mayor of the California town where buses carrying children from Central America were blocked by angry protesters last week has claimed that future migrant convoys would be welcomed and shown compassion.



Alan Long, the mayor of Murrieta, the southern town that has become a flashpoint in a crisis over undocumented migrants, blamed outsiders for orchestrating furious protests outside a US border patrol station there, which turned away the buses on Tuesday and later led to six arrests on Friday, the Independence Day holiday.



“What I’m telling you right now is if those buses were to arrive here tomorrow and enter the border patrol facility, you would see what Murrieta is known for, and that is a caring compassionate community,” Long told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.



Long conceded that it was “unfortunate” that buses transporting hundreds of people from the border, including families and children, were forced to reroute after being blocked by protesters in Murrieta last Tuesday. However, he insisted “it wasn’t anyone’s call” and said: “I can't tell people what to do. We had a very large crowd.”



While “we had some local residents with some legitimate concerns,” said Long, “I think most of the angry people that you saw protesting were from out of town.” He repeated several times during the interview: “the world showed up on our doorsteps.”



Six people were arrested on Friday after demonstrators from both sides of the debate over immigration clashed amid anticipation of a new convoy of migrants being transferred from Texas, where border detention facilities have been overwhelmed by people fleeing violence and poverty in countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.



Since October last year, more than 52,000 undocumented children have been detained as part of a situation that the Obama administration has described as a “humanitarian crisis”. The Department of Homeland Security had said busloads of migrants would be arriving at Murrieta’s border patrol station every third day from 1 July, prompting furious reactions from some local residents, some of whom readied fresh protests on 4 July.



A Murrieta resident opposed to undocumented immigrant heads into a town hall meeting to discuss the processing of undocumented immigrants. Photograph: Sam Hodgson/Reuters Photograph: SAM HODGSON/REUTERS

Long had previously struck a notably sharper tone on the migrant crisis, publicly railing against the US government’s decision to transport some of the migrants, whose numbers overwhelmed Texas border facilities, to the town. He has urged Murrieta residents to speak out as well.



“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,” he said at a news conference last Monday.



Long continued on Sunday to argue that “those people, those human beings, should be cared for immediately as they cross the border, not shipped halfway across the nation.”



However he also stressed the need to ensure “safety for everyone” and expressed disgust at the conditions new arrivals were forced to endure in detention facilities, which he described as “jail cells”. Photographs of crowded, unsanitary rooms packed with migrants detained at the US border have emerged in recent weeks, intensifying the crisis.



Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, on Sunday blamed President Obama for ignoring early warnings about the migrant crisis and even stood by a previous claim that the Obama administration was mounting a “coordinated effort” to intentionally bring Central Americans into the US.

Demonstrators picket before the possible arrival of undocumented migrants who may be processed at the Murrieta border patrol station. Photograph: Sam Hodgson/Reuters Photograph: SAM HODGSON/REUTERS

“The president has sent powerful messages time after time by his policies, by nuances, that it is OK to come to the United States and you can come across and you'll be accepted in open arms,” Perry told ABC’s This Week. “That is the real issue.”



Perry rejected suggestions that a bipartisan 2008 law signed by then-president George W Bush, guaranteeing a series of protections for migrant children arriving in the US from countries other than Mexico or Canada, was contributing to the current crisis. Obama has indicated that he wants the law reformed to restrict the influx of new arrivals from Central America.



“What has to be addressed is the security of the border,” said Perry, who called for thousands more national guard troops and border patrol agents to be deployed to the border in Texas and even for federal authorities to use drones to monitor people attempting to enter the US.