DREAMers line up as deportation-reprieve program begins

WASHINGTON -- Nataly Montano, who graduated in June from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va., with a 4.3 grade-point average, has her mind set on becoming a doctor.

Montano is in the country illegally. Her family brought her from Bolivia when she was 6, and the prospect of finding a college, medical school, residency program and hospital that would allow her to study and work was overwhelming. The family even considered moving back to Bolivia.

On Wednesday, those plans were thrown out when Montano joined thousands of people around the country who applied for a new federal program that could grant up to 1.7 million illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children a reprieve from deportation.

"It doesn't feel like it's real," Montano, now 17, said as she filled out her application at a clinic hosted by the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C. "My biggest worry was working after school, finding a residency program that would take an undocumented person. Now I see there's something out there."

Democrats in Congress have tried and failed to pass the DREAM Act, which would grant legal residency and the chance to become a U.S. citizen to young illegal immigrants with no criminal records and who have completed some college or served in the military.

President Obama decided in June to take matters into his own hands, announcing a program that will let that group of immigrants, known as DREAMers, receive a two-year deferment of deportation proceedings. They would not get any legal status, but if approved by Citizenship and Immigration Services, those DREAMers can apply for a work permit and later reapply for another deportation deferment.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the program opens the door for fraud and unleashes a torrent of unemployed workers at a time when the country's 8.3% unemployment rate is already making life difficult for U.S. citizens and legal residents.

"President Obama and his administration routinely put partisan politics and illegal immigrants ahead of the rule of law and the American people," Smith said in a statement.

DREAMers applying on Wednesday at immigration offices from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York were unrestrained in their excitement.

"This morning when I was getting ready, I was running around the house like a crazy person because I was so excited," said Evelyn Rivera, 23, a Colombia native who was brought to the country by her parents when she was 3 and now lives in Orlando.

"I'm very blessed," she said.

Despite the enthusiasm, many applicants realized how tenuous their position really is. Since Obama created the program without Congress, it could be eliminated by a future president or possibly by Congress.

Obama's Republican rival, Mitt Romney, criticized Obama's new program because it hurt the possibility of passing a long-term solution in Congress.

Romney was then asked specifically on CBS News' Face the Nation shortly after the program was announced whether he would repeal it.

"It would be overtaken by events, if you will, by virtue of my putting in place a long-term solution with legislation which creates law that relates to these individuals such that they know what their setting is going to be not just done for the term of a president but on a permanent basis," Romney said.

That explanation does little to calm the nerves of DREAMers such as Montano. She said Romney's tough stance on immigration — including his embrace during the primary of the idea of making life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they would choose to "self-deport" — tempered her enthusiasm for the new program on Wednesday. "This gives me a little hope … for now," said Montano, who is going to Texas Tech University this fall. "It would tear me apart if he decided to take this away from us."