By Sarah Ovaska - Staff writer

RALEIGH -- Three young women who came country as children and are now illegal immigrants are staging a hunger strike in an attempt to convince U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan to back a bill that could make them legal residents.

The women – Rosario Lopez, 25, Viridiana Martinez, 23, and Loida Silva, 22 – have set up tents across the street from the state legislative building in downtown Raleigh and subsisted on water, Pedialtye and Gatorade since June 14.

They have lost 23 pounds collectively and said they're growing weaker by the day but plan on continuing the hunger strike and camping out in the impromptu protest site they've secured near the state Legislature.

"If we don't do it, no one else is going to," Silva said in an earlier interview about the hunger strike. "Our parents broke the law, we didn't have a say in that."

Silva and Martinez arrived with their families when they were children on legitimate travel visas, but overstayed those visas after their families were unable to get permanent residency. Lopez was 13 when she, her mother and two siblings were smuggled across the Mexican border to join their father, who was already living in the Triangle. Lopez said the family was starving because her mother couldn't make enough to feed the family and her father had been injured during his own trip to the United States and unable to work.

They held a press conference this afternoon in front of Hagan's New Bern Avenue office in the federal courthouse.

All three women freely admit they are living in the country illegally and are angry and frustrated at the barriers in the U.S. immigration laws that leave them with slim chances of going on to college or getting jobs other under-the-table work.

The trio are trying to pressure Hagan, North Carolina’s Democratic senator, to sign on to what’s being called the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act). The federal legislation, which has floated around Congress for years, would give children who came to the U.S. illegally a chance to get permanent resident status if they attend college or join the military. It would also open up chances to take out federal student loans and enable them to pay in-state tuition for their home states.

Hagan, who is in Washington today, announced Tuesday afternoon she would not sign on to become a co-sponsor. U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is also not backing the bill.

Critics of the bill have said it would be rewarding immigrants who come to the country illegally, encourage more foreign-parents to smuggle their children and would be unfair to those who wait years to come to the country legally.

"It's a slippery slope and for a lot of Americans, it's a Bad Dream Act," said Ron Woodard of NC Listen, an advocacy group pushing for more immigration enforcement. "It's going to encourage more illegal immigration."

For a fuller report on the hunger strike, please check back on www.newsobserver.com or in tomorrow's print edition of The News & Observer.

(To read the DREAM Act (Senate Bill 729), go to Dream Act

Follow the hunger strikers here
sarah.ovaska@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4622

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