Illegal.

One word seems to define Karina’s life since she moved from Tlaxcala, Mexico to Kansas on May 29, 2001. It’s a date she cites automatically, similarly to the way people tell their birthdays.

That day, Karina, her parents and two younger sisters crossed the United States-Mexico border as tourists with no intention of returning to the city that she had known for 15 years. Karina was coming back to the country where she was born, while the rest of her family was leaving theirs.

Almost six and a half years have passed since the day they came to the United States. carring a few suitcases full of the essentials—mainly clothes and toiletries—that would help them begin their new life. Karina, a lean woman with black curly hair and glasses, is now a student at the University of Kansas who lives two different realities.

In one, she is a university student who is able to pay for school through scholarships and governmental loans. She works as a translator and has a driver’s license. In the other, she is part of a family of undocumented immigrants who think twice before getting behind the wheel, afraid of getting caught without a license.

“I have freedom. That’s a big thing.” Karina says, referring to the differences between her family’s everyday life and hers. “I’m able to do anything I want and not be afraid of doing it. My family doesn’t have the same privilege.”

Karina’s family is part of the 12 million undocumented immigrants who live in the country, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Her story is also not unusual. There are more than 3 million children who are U.S. citizens and live in houses where the head of the family is undocumented.

Because of his immigration status, Karina’s father, a college graduate with a mechanical engineering degree, works in the food section of a department store. He earns enough to feed the family and pay bills, but not enough to pay for college tuition.

Karina’s 18-year-old sister, who is an undocumented immigrant, graduated from high school a year ago hoping to follow in her sister’s footsteps by attending the University’s pre-med program.

Kansas laws seemed to be working in her sister’s favor in 2004 when the Kansas legislature passed a bill allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at state universities if they met certain requirements.

Karina’s sister graduated from high school last year and never attempted to apply to KU because her parents can’t afford to pay for her in-state tuition. Regardless of her GPA or involvement in school, Karina’s sister can’t apply for scholarships or loans because she doesn’t have a social security card.

Karina’s sister describes this experience as “a little embarrassing” because she thinks everyone knows that the reason she can’t attend the University is not because of her grades.

The idea of using her sister’s social security number has even come up, but Karina says they don’t want to break the law.

“On one hand, I don’t want to go against the law because I want to be a good citizen and on the other, I care about my sister,” She says. “What can you do if everything seems to be against you?”

To be able to pay in-state tuition, Karina’s sister has to sign an affidavit promising that she will apply for citizenship as soon as she can qualify. Students also have to graduate from a Kansas high school and have lived in the state for at least three years. Because of the Federal Right to Privacy act, the University is not allowed to release any of the students’ residency details that are not directory information.

Since the passage of the law, it has been challenged many times by bill opponents, including out-of-state students and other organizations.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for You Don’t Speak For Me, a national organization of Hispanics who speak out against illegal immigration, says that undocumented immigrants have committed a crime by crossing the United States and their children should not be rewarded.

Mehlman says that not passing the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) act, which would allow students who have been in the United States for five years or more, have graduated from high school and plan to go to college, to apply for American citizenship, would not punish the children of undocumented immigrants. The children would still be allowed to remain in the nation, but they would also not be rewarded for their parents’ crime by receiving citizenship.

“Somebody else’s kids are going pay the price. If an undocumented student gets into KU somebody else in the state of Kansas isn’t getting in.”

He says that because the parents of undocumented immigrants put them in this situation, they should be the ones who deal with it and not the US government.

Maria, an undocumented student at Kansas State University studying architecture who has asked that her name be changed for security issues, is another one of the students Mehlman is referring to.

She found a way to pay for college through privately funded scholarships that didn’t require a social security number. Like Karina’s sister, Maria can’t work to pay for her tuition because she doesn’t want to break the law.

Yet, she believes that same determination that got her into a state university will lead her to find a path towards citizenship.

“I learned you can do anything you want as long as you put your mind to it,” Maria says. “I do have obstacles. I’m trying to get an internship and I can’t work but I’m trying to find a way. There is a way. I have to find a way.”

Like many undocumented immigrants, her parents wanted their daughter to have a good education and a higher quality of life than they did in their home country. In Mexico, her father sold fruits and vegetables out of the back of an old car. They used the business as means of living until they could not pay for gasoline anymore. Maria tells the story of her family having to push the car to take it around town with a shy giggle.

Although Maria knows that a family pushing a car around is a comedic image, what the image represents is also what brought her parents to the United States a year and a half after that episode. They left a 14-year-old Maria in Mexico and moved to Kansas where they worked as cheap labor.

Today, Maria is a year and a semester away from graduating from college as an architect with dreams of one day being able to build affordable housing in Kansas. But she doesn’t meet any of the requirements to be able to apply for citizenship in the United States.

The path to reaching her dream, she says, is very blurry. Maria won’t be able to legally apply to for a job once she graduates, she can’t apply for internships, and because she doesn’t have a driver’s license, she won’t be able to take a required test for architecture students to get recognized.

But Maria doesn’t sit waiting for policies to change. She belongs to organizations that promote the DREAM act. The act is planned to be introduced to the senate in late October or early November.

“I don’t want to go back to Mexico. I keep saying that I will see what happens when I graduate. I really hope the DREAM act happens, that’s all I can say.”

But the debate about the law that would allow Maria to work after she graduates and Karina’s sister to afford the University is still heated.

David Trevino, an immigration lawyer, believes that children of undocumented immigrants should have an opportunity to study and work in the country that formed their education.

“Even though it was the parent who broke the law, the children shouldn’t be held accountable for that. They should be given an opportunity to legalize.” Trevino says.

Both Karina and Maria listen to all sides of the debate carefully. For them, it is not an isolated problem that is being discussed in offices in Washington or on CNN­—it is a law that would change their lives.

When talking about the illegal immigration discussion, Karina’s sister starts talking non-stop, getting obviously frustrated with every word coming out of her mouth. She says if she could talk to the people who discuss the issue on TV or in the legislature, she would have too much to say.

“I just want them to know that we want to be part of the country, which is not a bad thing,” she says. “We want to be part of the economy, we want to be good people and we want to get educated.”