Mariam Sarkisian, the younger of the two Armenian sisters who were released from federal custody Friday after two weeks in a Los Angeles holding cell, was expected to resume her life as a junior at Palo Verde High School today.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah Wolf Stuchiner, one of the lawyers who defended the Sarkisians, said he would be helping the sisters apply for the permit Tuesday at the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services in order to be able to return to work at Tropicana Pizza, their family business run by their father, Rouben, in Henderson.

Mariam's first chore today will be studying for final exams she missed while being held in the headline-grabbing case that nearly saw her and her sister put on a plane back to their birthplace, Armenia. The girls were detained on Jan. 14th when immigration authorities acted on a deportation order dating back to 1993.

"I've never wanted to go to school so bad," 17-year-old Mariam said Friday afternoon amid the hubbub at the pizzeria surrounding their return. "But it's going to be hard catching up," she added. Mariam's courses include an elective course in fashion design, which is what she wants to study at a technical school when she gets her high school diploma in 2006. The teenager hopes to become a designer when she is older because it is a career where "you can be yourself and do what you want to do with no limits," she said.

Emma, 18, said her first order of business since settling back into her life in Las Vegas was to get permission to work at the pizzeria and then to obtain a driver's license. Work permits are available to both girls as a condition of the so-called deferred action that immigration authorities took to release the sisters, Stuchiner said.

This means the girls still have no legal status in the United States, but they can remain in the country and are able to work. The work permit then serves as a means of identification, Stuchiner said, which the girls can use for purposes such as obtaining a driver's license. In the future, Emma wants to go to college, perhaps out of state, she said, "to have some freedom." She said she is "going to take college more seriously than high school."

Emma graduated from Palo Verde in June and didn't study very hard, she said. As for her future, she said she "always wanted to be a singer" when she was younger, but her experience of being detained and threatened with deportation has made her think about other options. Now, she said, she is "thinking of being a judge or a lawyer so this doesn't happen to anyone else." Alternatively, she said, she would like to work in the entertainment industry.

Both girls said they look forward to becoming citizens, in order to resolve the problem that led to their detention and separation from their family. The problem became apparent when Rouben Sarkisian took the girls to local immigration officials to obtain paperwork he thought they should be able to get after years of attempts to gain legal status. But instead, he found that his marriage to a U.S. citizen and becoming a legal resident had not changed their status. The sisters still had a deportation order hanging over their heads. Stuchiner said "the most logical avenue" for the teens to be able to become citizens was for their father to become a citizen and then petition for his daughters.

Father Phil Carolin, executive director of the Citizenship Project, a nonprofit organization that has helped about 1,250 people become citizens, said "the main hurdle is the language" for most immigrants when it comes to passing the citizenship interview and exam. Sarkisian said he "speaks English okay and understands," but has chosen to speak through Russian interpreters while in the media spotlight in the last few weeks. Another hurdle for many immigrants, Carolin said, is that "many of these people hold down two or three jobs" and never find the time to study. Sarkisian's job often requires him to work up to 14 hours a day, Emma said.

Looking back not only on the last two weeks, but on his 56 years, he said, "My life is like an airplane – I don't see it. Only work, work, work." Saturday turned out to be Sarkisian's birthday and the toasts with vodka were flowing at Tropicana Pizza. "I already have my biggest gift," he said of his daughters' return.