The sisters still remember the grueling seven-hour walk through the desert alongside their two brothers, six other undocumented immigrants and a smuggler. Their faces turn serious when they recall refilling their empty water bottles from a slimy stock tank they found along the way.

"When we arrived in Deming, they quickly shoved us into a truck. There were 11 of us piled up, and we weren't allowed to move until we got to Santa Fe," said Lupita, 26. She and her sister Lourdes, 30, are among seven siblings who have lived for years in Santa Fe as undocumented immigrants. They asked not to be fully identified for this story.

For immigrants and migrants through the generations, leaps of faith have often led to hardship. They uproot themselves, trading the comforts of home for the stresses of life in an adopted residence.

For undocumented residents like Lupita and Lourdes, that anxiety is particularly acute: The threat of deportation robs them of any feeling of permanence.

Their main source of stability, their family, was further shaken more than a year ago when their mother died. They still haven't decided: Should they bury her in Santa Fe? Would a final resting place here be wrong if the family landed back in Mexico?

Lupita and Lourdes have been in the U.S. for 11 years. Their oldest sister has lived in their adopted country for 18 years. Five of the seven siblings are homeowners, and all have made a living as grocery stockers, hotel service workers, restaurant cooks or housekeepers.

When Lupita and Lourdes left their native Aguascalientes, Mexico, 11 years ago, they said, they didn't realize that life was not going to be as rosy as they thought.

"You only heard sweet stories about how here you were able to buy anything you wanted and that you could travel all over, see new places," Lupita said. "But nobody told you the truth, about how difficult life is here."

Their father is a legal permanent resident, but he never completed the paperwork to petition for legal status for his family. Instead, he saved $1,500 per person and paid to have them smuggled.

The sacrifice, they had believed, was worth it. They would finally be together. It had been years since they last had gathered together around the dinner table.

Their mother, Josefina, used to cook large pans of mole and handmade corn tortillas for all of them. She spoiled them.

"She never let us do anything. She wanted to serve our food and made our favorite meals," a family member said during a recent birthday party.

Josefina wasn't there for the piñata. She had developed diabetes and passed away in May 2010. For Mother's Day, her children, along with their own children and spouses, celebrated Josefina with a Mass. They didn't bury her. They cremated her instead. The mother's ashes sit in a funeral urn in Lourdes' living room. A small altar bears the cherry-colored box with a rosary, Virgen de Guadalupe candles, flowers and family photographs.

Not burying their mother is taking a toll.

"Our futures are uncertain. We don't know what's going to happen," Lupita said, referring to the siblings' unauthorized status and the implications it brings.

"We want to stay," Lourdes said one evening while her two children played at a neighborhood park. "Our children were all born here."

Immigration reform seems out of reach. And one day, they might have to give up their driver's licenses.

And in the meantime, until the siblings are truly settled, their mother remains in limbo.

"We won't bury her until we know what's going to happen," Lupita said. "We don't know if we're going back to Mexico or if we're going to stay. My mother just always wanted to be where her children were."