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The US is home to around seven million undocumented migrants from central and south America. Many have been in the US for years, providing a vital workforce for many sectors of the US economy. But they have no health cover, or workplace benefits and many live under the constant threat of deportation back home.

As Americans prepare for another presidential race where immigration is likely to figure high again on the agenda, Mike Lanchin travels to the state of Maryland, to hear about the lives of some of its large undocumented Latino population.

Maria is a single mother from El Salvador, who gets up at 5am for work, but has no holiday or sick pay, and never knows from one day to the next if she will have a job. Her younger sister, Delmi, tells Mike how she has been using false papers to get work since arriving last year. She worries that she, her partner and their four-year-old son will have to move constantly to avoid deportation. And we hear from Toño who came to the US as an unaccompanied minor but now has a temporary work permit, although his wife is still classed as undocumented despite working and paying US taxes for almost two decades.

Presenter/producer: Mike Lanchin
Editor: Kristine Pommert
A CTVC production for Â鶹Éç World Service

(Photo: Men looking for work at the US-Mexican border Credit: Getty Images)