When I first met Jennifer Cruz, she was 17 years old.

She had recently made the dangerous journey to the United States all by herself to escape extreme violence plaguing her country of El Salvador.

Hundreds of thousands of other unaccompanied minors from Central America did the same thing.

In Jennifer's case, gang members were threatening to kidnap and rape her if she didn’t give in to their demands.

This teenager was fortunate. Not only did she make it to the U.S. safely, but she also had an older sister, Yesenia, in California. Even though Yesenia is undocumented, federal immigration officials said Jennifer could stay with her sister while Jennifer's case worked its way through immigration court.

About two years later, Jennifer is now 19 and looks a lot more grown-up. She wears makeup and her once long black hair is shorter and reddish-brown.

There is also a new person in her life: a baby nephew named Isaac. Yesenia gave birth to him about sixth months ago. Like any good aunt, Jennifer spoils her nephew with gifts and changes lots of diapers.

"We're happy to have this new baby to love and enjoy," Jennifer says. "I feel more like a sister to him, not an aunt."

Another big change in Jennifer’s life is that she’s driving -- a responsibility that she accepts with great pride. She tells me she never thought she would learn to drive a car, and now feels like a "real American teenager."

Despite this new independence, Jennifer has been dealing with some unexpected setbacks.

The two-bedroom apartment she shares with her sister’s family of four -- which includes Yesenia's husband, Isaac and 6-year-old Walter -- is crowded. She quit school to help the family make ends meet.

Jennifer is now a hotel housekeeper, earning $11 an hour. But Yesenia hopes that Jennifer won’t give up on school forever.

"She wanted to make her own money. I’m not working, so I can’t really give her any money,” Yesenia says. “But I told her, 'Just because you’re earning money doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also be studying.' "

Another setback is Yesenia’s health.

She has been dealing with a number of complications since Isaac was born. In fact, when I went back for another visit, Yesenia had just suffered a minor stroke, leaving her partially paralyzed.

Jennifer is now taking on the role of mom, an even bigger responsibility that she never anticipated.

"It’s hard because it’s a lot more work,” Jennifer says. “But I want to help her. I don’t want to abandon her. If something happened to me, I know she would do the same thing. I love her very much. And I love my little nephews."

But Jennifer worries about whether Yesenia will ever fully recover, and what that means for her own future.

If there’s one bright spot, it’s this: After two years of nerve-racking court appearances, endless paperwork and lots of emotional anguish, Jennifer finally won her case to stay in this country legally.

Not too long ago she got the call from her pro bono attorney, who said to come to her office right away.

“When I got there, [my attorney] handed me a folder with all my documents,” Jennifer recalls. “Then she said, ‘You got your papers, you can stay.’ I was overcome with emotion, my sister, too. All the stress and all the anxiety was finally gone. … I was just so happy. I still can’t believe it.”

Jennifer qualified for a certain kind of federal immigration relief called Special Immigrant Juvenile Status.

Young migrants can apply for this protection if they were abandoned, neglected or abused by one or both parents.

For Jennifer, her father left her and her mother a long time ago. Jennifer's mother is still in touch, but because of all the violence in El Salvador, she has taken refuge in a church.

Jennifer's attorney had to prove all this to a California judge who ultimately ruled that Jennifer was in fact abandoned by her father. That cleared the way for a federal immigration judge to let her stay in this country legally.

It is indeed a huge victory for this teenager who left her entire world behind in hopes of simply finding a safe place.

But it is clear Jennifer is still not entirely free of the trauma of her past -- the violence she experienced in El Salvador, the brutal and ugly things she witnessed on her journey here, the month she was locked up in a U.S. detention center.

Jennifer says she doesn’t have any more nightmares, but she still has to sleep with the light on.

“It was traumatic,” Jennifer says. “All the bad stuff that happened, I have to set that aside and take the good things forward. The past is past. I have to live in the present to have a good future.”

And Jennifer says so far she’s OK with cleaning hotels for a living.

But Yesenia sees things differently.

She has spent the last decade cleaning houses to earn money, and says the satisfaction of making some decent money eventually gives way to resentment.

Yesenia says she doesn’t want that for Jennifer’s future.

“It’s so humiliating,” Yesenia says. “People with money think they can mistreat poor people. They accuse us of robbing them. But they sure want us to clean their dirty toilets. That’s why I tell Jennifer to study and learn English so nobody can humiliate you.”

Jennifer says she hopes to go back to school someday. She dreams of becoming a nurse.

She also wants to return to El Salvador.

I ask her why go back to a place she was desperate to flee. Jennifer says it’s simple: to see her mother.

“I wish I could hug her, just give her lots of hugs," she says. "I don’t want her to be alone. I tell her if I ever do go back, I wouldn’t bring anything, just myself to see her. Living here [in the U.S.], I can have so much, but I can’t have my mom.”

And so, Jennifer’s journey continues.

Indeed, she it made to the U.S. safely and won a huge victory by getting her green card.

However, life remains complicated and hard and, in many ways, Jennifer still feels confined at the very same time she has found a new sense of freedom.