Lockjaw's second-in-command and chief interrogator, Danvers, is played by a non-professional actor: James 'Jim' Raterman, a security consultant and former HSI Special Agent.
"Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Hooterville Junction" are lyrics from Gil Scott-Heron's song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," which is heard in the film. Each is a reference to a popular 1960s TV series, Hooterville being the fictional community in O Fazendeiro do Asfalto (1965) and Petticoat Junction (1963).
The title of the film is taken from a 1969 statement from the revolutionary political group The Weather Underground that was published in an issue of New Left Notes, a left-wing periodical from the Students for a Democratic Society. The statement read: "From here on out, it's one battle after another - with white youth joining in the fight and taking the necessary risks. Pig Amerika beware. There's an army growing in your guts and it's going to bring you down." The first and last sentences of this statement are both used in dialogue in the first act of the film.
Benicio del Toro suggested ideas for the scenes showing Sensei involved in the cause of helping migrants in a "Latino Harriet Tubman situation", and in addition many of the characters featured in the round-up and evade sequence were members of his extended family as well as close family friends, all of whom know someone or the other threatened and harassed by immigration crackdown.
Filmed over 7 months across California (Eureka, Arcata, Sacramento, Stockton, San Juán Bautista, San Diego, Los Ángeles, Borrego Springs) and El Paso, TX.