Washington Post

By Max Ehrenfreund

It’s often said that undocumented immigrants live “in the shadows,” and that’s true in at least two ways. Not only must they often hide their identities in order to work, but they are also largely invisible to researchers. Since it’s so difficult to identify them in surveys, we know little about how they live, their health, their education, their finances, and their plans for the long term.

A new study on the behavior of children in undocumented families in Los Angeles casts some light into those shadows, with disturbing results. The findings are particularly relevant this week, as a crisis in Congress worsens over President Obama’s offer to defer deportation for millions of undocumented parents whose children are citizens or are in the country legally…

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