Film shoot in Tijuana River Valley

The Tijuana River Valley rancher sits in his truck, off a side road to a backroad north of Monument Road, a mile from the border and a mile from the ocean. He's been here 24 years, he says, in a cluster of small ranches with chickens and horses.

He watches the 20 or so film-crew members shoot take after take of a scene for a movie called La Migra, being filmed in the river valley next to the border.

Angelic Pictures, Mark Maine's San Diego–based company, is filming the story of a porous border, a Border Patrol agent's first love coming back to him and bringing evil and betrayal into his life. This scene has a beautiful young woman and a shaved, tatted, muscled, and mustachioed man exchanging cars and more on a dirt road near the border.

The rancher points to the actor who looks like a criminal: "You remember they used to have all Mexicans in movies wearing a big sombrero and sleeping? I say to the actor, ‘Who are you supposed to be?' and he says, ‘Mafia.’ So I guess that's better than when we were just gente who sleep in sombreros, eh?"