His face is shown once more but still in shadow. He has lit another cigarette and the smoke trembles against the side of his face like a veil.

‘And yet you have paid for your son and daughter to make such a crossing. Why?’

‘There is no other way. They have no life except for this life that is here. And sometime, for sure, there will be an amnesty for all who crossed.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because we work hard and that means we are needed. They will not send us back. Nunca.’

The camera shifts to the pot that’s slowly simmering. And then we’re somewhere else. An unnamed border town and the filming suggests it’s been done surreptitiously as we walk past what look like impromptu stores selling the paraphernalia of crossing, as if offering to equip pilgrims for their coming journey, or the way commerce flourished to equip the gold rushes. So there are backpacks and water bottles, camouflage clothing and walking boots, blankets and hats to protect from the sun. An old woman with a wizened face and missing teeth smiles behind her stall and hopes for a purchase. Then there are shelters offering beds, cable television and hot water to those who have arrived and need a place to stay before they attempt the crossing. We go inside one – a communal room with bunk beds, a man sitting on one in a white vest who holds his hand in front of his face, a huddle of young men playing cards and listening to a radio.

A young man and a woman. His son and daughter. Again their faces are only partly revealed. And they speak softly and shyly in Spanish, as if making a confession to a priest, and the subtitles tell us that they are ready to make the crossing, ready to be part of the new and better life that their father has made.

‘Are you frightened?’

The young woman looks at her brother before nodding, but he smiles and says, ‘Solamente un poco.’

They shall carry almost no personal possessions, only the provisions that they will need to survive. Their father has paid the price – seven thousand dollars for both of them and they know that if they are caught by a border patrol their father’s hard-earned money will be lost. The young man says that where they live has become a ghost town, its life and future transported to a different world. Only the old and infirm are left. And the few – he struggles for the word, so he calls them politicos – who want the young to stay because their country needs them, because they can help build a better future for their people.

‘But the cartels, the drug gangs, will not let it happen,’ the young woman says, and then looks at her brother as if to see whether she has said something she shouldn’t.