Police in California, US have re-apprehended two murder suspects who recently escaped prison through a 22-inch hole.

Santos Samuel Fonseca, 21, and Jonathan Salazar, 20, crawled through a 22inch (55cm) hole they cut in a toilet ceiling at the jail in the city of Salinas, south of San Francisco.

The local sheriff’s office said the men had exploited a “blind spot”.

The two were awaiting trial for separate murder charges when they escaped on Sunday.

“We’re disappointed that there are people charged with homicide who are no longer in our jail,” Jonathan Thornburg, a spokesman for the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, said.

The suspects bored the hole in a toilet where prison guards could not see them, officials said.

The hole was wide enough for Mr Fonseca and Mr Salazar, both 5ft 7in (1.7m) tall, to climb through.

The suspects have since been arrested after breaking out of the prison on Sunday.

They were both arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials at a port of entry in San Ysidro — the nation’s largest border crossing — early Wednesday, said Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Capt. John Thornburg.

Investigators have not yet determined how long they worked on making the hole or if anyone else helped them escape or helped them after they were out. They were reported missing at 8:15 a.m. Sunday.

Thornburg said authorities received a tip that the pair, both born and raised in Salinas, had been spotted in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, around 400 miles south of Monterey County, and alerted federal officials.

CBP spokeswoman Jackie Wasiluk said the men didn’t present any documents. They said they were U.S. citizens, and a check of law enforcement databases told border inspectors that they were wanted by authorities.

How the pair made it to Mexico, why they decided to travel together since they allegedly belong to rival gangs and why they returned to the United States is under investigation, Thornburg said.