Hoping the sit-in will fade from the public view, ICE is sticking to the safe line that the students’ actions in Washington simply “illustrate the need for comprehensive immigration reform,” as spokesperson Gillian Brigham told me.

Yet this strikes many on Capitol Hill as an inexcusable failure to enforce the law. “It’s outrageous,” California Rep. Gary Miller told the Orange County Register. “How can you have a protest right in a U.S. senator’s office, admit you are here illegally in violation of the law, and we pat you on the back and do nothing?”

But even doing nothing stands to strengthen the “Dreamers.” Pictures of these students protesting with impunity are already making an impression on students of illegal status from coast to coast, spreading the movement with the aid of social networking websites.