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Pueblo Sin Fronteras was founded in Dallas in 2009 by Roberto Corona, a Mexican-American immigrant. The group began with workplace rights classes, and several years ago they expanded their activism south of the border, opening migrant shelters in the violent areas near the Sonora border.
In 2017, the group organized hundreds of migrants to travel from the Guatemala border to the U.S. border. Corona called it the 'refugee caravana'.
“We wanted the governments of Mexico and the United States to acknowledge that there was a refugee crisis and they were turning a blind eye to it,” Corona told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
A year later, the group organized another caravan. This caravan, of about 1,500 migrants, arrived in Tijuana in May, and ended in separated families, prosecuted criminals, and the rest left waiting for a slim chance at asylum into the United States. After the disaster of that caravan, Corona said he was done organizing them.
But in October, another large group of migrants from Central America began a trip to the U.S. border, and it gained national attention.
While Pueblo Sin Fronteras said they weren't the organizers, they did admit to helping the cause. They claim to have protected the migrants from rape and other dangers during their trip, but conservatives say the group has instead been hiding human trafficking schemes.
Recently, they've been the target of even more threats and conspiracy theories, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. But the group said that they have never received money from Soros, or any other government affiliation, instead claiming that they are funded by Freedom for Immigrants, a nonprofit based out of Oakland.
According to their recent tax record, Pueblo Sin Fronteras actually made $588,933 in revenue from July 2016 to June 2017. But now in Tijuana, thousands of migrants are still waiting to apply for asylum at the border, because Pueblo Sin Fronteras has failed to keep them under control.
Some are leaving and returning back to Central America, some are staying in the streets of Mexico, and some have crossed illegally into the United States later to be caught by authorities.
“Pueblo Sin Fronteras cheated the migrants; they told them lies that once they arrived at the border, everything would be very easy,” Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest in Mexico said.
Read more on The San Diego Union-Tribune.