However, the system doesn't work that way, says Hamp, the assistant attorney general. When Social Security earnings don't match exactly the information for the Social Security number's holder, the credit goes into a separate file.

And even if Maricela Naranjo did pay her bills, at least one person using Yvonne Carrasco's identity didn't.

Carrasco says the identity theft has cost her chances at obtaining a credit card, buying a car and moving her family to a better place. She even wonders, in retrospect, if she's been turned down for employment opportunities because of it. Her oldest daughter is living with grandparents because of the cramped living conditions in the studio where Carrasco has been for the past eight years.

"I feel like I'm missing out," she says.

Few options

As her son, Julian Gonzalez Jr., 11, quizzes his sister, 5-year-old Jizelle Analla, with alphabet cards, Carrasco ponders future opportunities of moving. Her only income now is from food stamps, and she is hoping that her boyfriend will eventually find more regular employment than the farm work he does and that she can find reliable transportation so she can get a job, too.

She's also looking at new housing opportunities — possibly self-help housing in which low-income individuals help build their own homes, or getting back on the waiting list for public assistance.

In rural Zacatecas, meanwhile, Maricela Naranjo longs for a different sort of reprieve. She sees little hope for her family to all be together, at least not legally.

Since she's been deported, she can't re-enter the country legally for 10 years, even though her husband is a U.S. citizen, unless she can qualify for a waiver.

The couple opted not to take the risk of Jaime Naranjo sponsoring Maricela for immigration, because they feared she wouldn't be able to obtain that waiver, which requires showing an applicant's absence would cause an immediate family member, with legal status, to suffer severe hardship.

Now, she shakes her head at the prospect of having to illegally cross a border again. Her husband is equally frustrated at not knowing when his family will be reunited. Before the visit to Zacatecas, Jaime Jr. cried, saying he wanted to spend time with his mother.

Jaime Naranjo has heard little in the efforts in Congress that would help his family. The failed Senate bill would have only given those currently living in the United States illegally a chance at legal status. And the immigration attorneys he has consulted have offered little hope.

"They should consider us having a family, having a house, and doing good," he says. "We have to hope that there's a better future for us than this."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com