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A leader of the protest in Murrieta that turned away buses full of undocumented immigrant women and children bound for that California town called the action “an awesome moment for America” Wednesday.

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"They're illegal aliens and they should not come here illegally. We have our own children to worry about,” Patrice Lynes told NBC News before a town meeting on the issue Wednesday night. "We want the illegal aliens repatriated to their own country."

On Tuesday, three buses full of about 140 migrants were forced to turn around after protesters blocked the road to Murietta, a town of about 103,000 people between Los Angeles and San Diego, and shouted slogans like, “Go Back to Mexico!”

The migrants were sent to Murrieta to be processed as the federal government tries to handle a crush of people, many of them unaccompanied children, who have streamed across the southern border in a desperate bid to escape violence in Central America.

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— David Hinchman