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Editor's note: Monica's name was changed in the following article to protect her identity.

Monica said she did not want to leave her native Bolivia 13 years ago. She was coming to New York with her mother and sister and ran away in the cloak of night before her flight to New York from La Paz.

"I had my friends there. I had everything and I was scared," said the now 26-year-old Brooklyn, NY resident.

Though Monica said she had to go through a lot of culture and language changes, she now considers herself American in many ways, except legally. Her mother and sister have since returned to Bolivia but Monica wants to stay. Though she married an American citizen two years ago, she is still in limbo and still illegal, her husband said. Like many illegal immigrants brought by their parents, they pray for the passing of the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, introduced in Congress in 2003, would provide graduating, undocumented high school students with financial aide and permanent residence. The DREAM Act failed in the Senate last October. If passed the bill would repeal a 1996 provision that prohibited college educational benefits to aliens.

"When a child comes to this country, their educational opportunities should be the same as those of children born here," said Congressman José E. Serrano (D-NY). "If a child works hard in school and wants to go to college, they should be allowed that chance."

Though the bill has support in Congress, it is still controversial since opposition to it is loud.

"There's a vocal anti-immigrant minority but they're very vocal right now and they are succeeding in intimidating many politicians," said Josh Bernstein, director of federal policy at the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center. "It is caught up in the larger politics of immigration. The DREAM Act should be passed in order to pass the children off the field of immigration battles."

Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform is in opposition to the bill claiming it would take away educational privileges to American citizens and invite illegal immigration.

"Since state colleges and universities across the nation have limited enrollment capacity, increasing the intake of illegal aliens into these schools will necessarily preclude opportunities for deserving U.S. citizens and legal residents," reads a FAIR statement on the DREAM Act.

Each year, about 65,000 U.S.-raised students who would qualify for the bill graduate from high school, according to the Immigration Law Center. It's around this time that, though they listen to the same music and dress the same way as fellow students, immigrants discover they are different. It's at that time they see their friends go off to college but they stay behind because they cannot afford it. These students, some of them honor students, are usually forced to take menial jobs.

"It's not my fault I came here when I was little," said Monica, who works at a gym. "I just want to make a good living and if I have to pay taxes I don't have any problem with it."

The last major immigration amnesty act was passed in 1986 where illegal aliens living in the U.S. since 1982 could have applied for legal residency. Monica's husband, Angel, 27, a tax consultant, said he loves her and would have married her anyway. When he made phone calls to immigration officials a few years ago, they said that marriage was the only way to keep her here.

"Their idea of fixing anything was ‘just get married,'" he said. "It's the government themselves that have no answer."

Angel, who did not want his last name used, and Monica have attended pro-immigrant rallies in hopes for change, but it remains out of grasp.

"We're hoping there're going to be changes with this coming election," Angel said.

Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said indeed the only option to gain residency for immigrants who are here on a visa, expired or not, is marriage.

"Legally," he added. "Marriage fraud is not the answer."

This carries severe penalties for the immigrant, including a permanent bar from the United States, Strassberger said. Though the eyes of the law don't see any difference in the illegal immigrants who grew up in the United States from their parents who brought them here, the immigrants themselves certainly do.

"I've been here [over] 10 years," Monica said. "For me to go back it's going to be really hard to adjust. There are no jobs over there. What am I going to do there?"

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