"It's not easy because the demonstrations we're mounting are in bad weather and it's getting very cold, but the strength and enthusiasm behind getting this reform done won't allow us to stay home," said one of the hunger strikers, the Argentine Monica Carrizo who has lived in the US for 13 years without papers.
Carrizo, who said she was "desperate", intends to stick to her hunger strike for immigration reform "until it's approved" and believes that will occur this year, even though the speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, John Boehner, said Wednesday that the immigration law will not be debated until 2014.