SACRAMENTO -- Her classmates’ future potentially closing around them, Liliana Cortez took the lead.

Cortez, an eleventh grader from Sacramento, joined more than a hundred others at a student rally at the Capitol midday Thursday to urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign a bill that would allow undocumented students who grew up here access to federal grants to pay for college.

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This was for Cortez, just 16, the third march “in support of my people.” Among her friends at Burbank High School, she counts undocumented students who, she said, won’t have the same opportunities she does.

“They tell me,” Cortez said, “that later on their life will be very difficult.”

Students from the Bay Area, including some from Berkeley High School, De Anza College and UC Berkeley, rallied for a bill known as the California Dream Act, which the governor vetoed just last year. They were gathered by an immigrant rights group entitled By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), to press the issue before the October 10 deadline to sign in.

An estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year, according to the National Immigration Law Center. Of that number, 25,000 are said to reside in California.

Undocumented students are not set up to succeed, according to UC Berkeley junior Silvrio Pelayo.

“Not only do they have to overcome the obstacle of mediocre education in high school but also the burden of getting no help to get to college,” the 22-year-old social welfare student said.

Pelayo, marching down to the Capitol, pointed to a low UC acceptance rate for Latinos as a sign that there is real need for the legislature he supports.

“We can see that Latinos make up only 11 percent of the general campus population but 47 percent of the state population,” Pelayo said. “It’s supposed to be a public school but it’s not reflected in the acceptance numbers. Hopefully, this act will increase that number.”

While contentious issues such as the legalization of abortion and federal funding of stem cell research have hit political roadblocks lately, the immigration issue is making headway, supporters say. In last November’s elections, many Republicans who displayed hardlines against immigration lost their seats, including Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), who last year proposed changing the Constitution to deny automatic citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil.

BAMN organizer Kate Stenvig, 26, of Detroit pointed in particular to the state of New York’s recent decision to repeal the need to show proof of citizenship to award drivers licenses as a victory that could have an impact in California. “If anything that’s a kick in the ass to Schwarzenegger,” Stenvig said.

In the case that the Dream Act is defeated again this month, the group will work to get it passed in the spring, the group has vowed.

“In any movement we’re not going to win every fight,” BAMN organizer Ronald Cruz, a UC Berkeley law student, said. “We’re going to win this Dream Act- the question is when.”

The majority of the protesters were young Hispanics, Filipinos and Blacks of high school age marching in a rally for the first time. They were accompanied by more seasoned college students and graduates.

“It’s beautiful because it’s youth-led,” Pelayo said. “Hopefully this will sway the governor’s opinion. This definitely a great demonstration of compassion.”

For many, the march to expand access to education meant a midweek reprieve from their own education. Alicia Ramirez, a senior at Oakland Tech High School, had no qualms about missing AP government, AP biology, AP calculus and English, and she even got parental blessings--her mother signed a permission slip.

“I spoke my mind and I yelled and I did all I could,” Ramirez, 18, said. “It was a good cause.”

Sacramento Police officers and Highway Patrolmen made their presence known quickly and persistently.

As the group assembled and gathered protesters in the city’s South Side Park, three patrol cars pulled up alongside. Several officers warned the group that, without the proper permits, the march would have to remain on sidewalks and abide by traffic meters. A threat to arrest anyone who defied the orders was not lost on 14-year-old Michael Wilson of Burbank High School.

“It makes me a little nervous,” he said, “but I’m kind of hoping they will make a disturbance because it will bring more attention to what we are trying to do.”

In the end, the protesters both pushed the limits and backed down to law enforcement orders. The march to reach the Capitol spilled into the street and ignored red lights. It was led by a pickup truck shouting slogans through amplifiers but followed closely by seven patrol cars, four bike patrols and a handful of officers on foot.

Alma Soriano, 17, of Los Angeles is no stranger to immigrant rights issues. Not only does she serve a BAMN organizer, but she doubles as the president of School United for Equality, a student group at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School where she attends class. Last year, she flew to Washington D.C. and Michigan to lobby with BAMN for immigrant rights.

“My mother came from Mexico approximately 20 years ago [and has stayed here on a work permit] hoping that we would have a better future,” Soriano said at the rally. “Now, as a daughter of an immigrant I feel that it is my duty to fight for what this country promised.”

Several protestors sought to remind immigration policymakers of their own migratory heritage.

“The founders of this country were immigrants too so why are we oppressing them now?” Soriano said.

Gov. Schwarzenegger immigrated from Austria in 1968 at the age of 21. Still, he vetoed the Dream Act when it arrived on his desk last year, has spoken out against giving illegal immigrants driver’s licenses and voted for Proposition 187, the 1994 initiative that denied some social services to illegal immigrants.

“If [Schwarzenegger] has a right to come in to this country and become governor young people have the right to go to college,” BAMN organizer Cruz said. “And the attack on immigrants in reality is a racist attack directed at Latinos and everybody knows that. You look at the history of this country: there are huge waitlists for Filipinos, Mexicans and Chinese [to gain citizenship] but people like Arnold come in right away.”