For hundreds of thousands of students and young adults across the country who have been living under the threat of deportation, a door opened a bit last week.
Now they have to decide whether to walk through.
In the Chicago area, young people expressed both excitement and apprehension over a new federal immigration policy that will give undocumented immigrants who are not over age 30 and came to the U.S. when they were younger than 16 a chance to stay in the country.
The policy offers those who are eligible the opportunity to apply for a renewable two-year deferral on their cases and for work authorization.
Some who fit the requirements eagerly made plans to pursue job opportunities. Others worried that their deferral applications might be denied or that the policy could be rescinded if President Barack Obama loses his bid for re-election in November. Some decided it might still be best to remain anonymous.
The Obama administration's new policy, which according to estimates could affect 800,000 to 1.4 million people, reopened the hot button topic of immigration and quickly came under criticism, with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying the decision makes it more difficult to reach "a long-term solution."
The deferrals are open to those with a clean criminal record, and additional requirements include being a student, high school graduate or military veteran.
Those affected have lived under a shadow most of their lives, unable to fully participate in a country many of them consider home.
"They feel American in many ways but do not enjoy the same benefits," said Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has researched the 11-year-old movement behind the federal DREAM Act, which would grant legal immigration status to students and military personnel who were brought to the U.S. as children.
"It is very difficult to be in this limbo status in which they can't get on with their lives," Flores-Gonzalez said. "They have just been waiting."
The news had a large community of young people in Chicago buzzing about their own dreams for the future. Here are a few stories expressing their hopes and frustrations.