And these DREAMers are now waking up and stepping out of the shadows to call for immigration reform.

"People are just breaking down and crying for joy when they find out what the president did," Lorella Praeli, a leader of the United We Dream Network, the largest coalition of illegal immigrant students, told the New York Times.

They are activists like Jose Antonio Vargas, who revealed his undocumented status in a June 2011 article for the New York Times.

"I grew up here. This is my home. Yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn't think of me as one of its own," Vargas said.

There are DREAMers like Jessica Coloti, a graduate of Kennesaw State University, who was arrested for driving without a license and detained in 2010 for being an illegal immigrant. Coloti had crossed the border from Mexico into the United States with her family at age 10. As a teenager she excelled in high school and was accepted into the university with the aim of becoming a lawyer. After 37 days in detention, under threat of deportation, she was released on a one-year deferral to finish her studies. She has graduated, but her future remains uncertain. She said Obama's program of deferrals is a step in the right direction.

"I was very thrilled. It's been extremely hard and sometimes it's very frustrating because you don't know what's going to happen," Coloti told the CBS affiliate in Atlanta, Georgia.

And there are DREAMers for whom the dream comes too late. "Julian," a 41-year-old undocumented worker in New York City, overstayed a student visa decades ago and never returned to his home in the Caribbean.

"It was the 80s," he said. "It was a different time back then. It wasn't a big deal to overstay your passport – but now if I go home I can't come back."

Without a driver's license or a social security card, Julian says he can't get a "real job" with benefits like health insurance or retirement savings. Instead, he works for cash. He doesn't pay income taxes and he cannot own a home. When his grandmother died, he was unable to join the rest of his family in the Caribbean for the funeral. He only sees his mother when she visits the United States.

"I try not to think about it. I just take care of the day-to-day," he said. "I try not to get sick and try not to get into trouble."

Many undocumented residents find a path to citizenship through marriage to a U.S. citizen, but Julian is gay. Though New York State has legalized same-sex marriage, the ruling provides no protection to illegal immigrants, who need a federal law legalizing same-sex marriage to gain the benefits of citizenship.

"It's a double whammy," Julian said. "I'm a gay alien."

Julian isn't alone. He said many members of his Caribbean community and members of his family are living in the New York area illegally. They have legal children (born in the United States), wives and husbands. Many pay taxes, using stolen or forged social security numbers. Many have driver's licenses and own homes. They live in fear of being discovered and deported back to a country they left long ago.

"Everybody in the United States came from somewhere else," Julian said. "We're not any different. We just came late to the party and now there are all these rules against us."

Though he doesn't qualify for the deferral program, Julian said he hope it is a sign that the DREAM act will one day be reality.

"Yeah, I'm a dreamer," he said. "My dream is that one day I will legally be what I have been for most of my life – an American."

The author is a freelance writer living in New York City