Karla Ortiz held a microphone at Wake Technical Community College on Saturday afternoon, looked New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in the eye and asked the presidential candidate whether she would help young immigrants like Ortiz attend four-year colleges and universities.

Clinton said yes, she'd try to relax the current regulations that make it difficult for young people without "green cards" or visas to attend four-year educational institutions. Ortiz, 24, nodded and thanked Clinton for her time.

Despite their exchange, Clinton and Ortiz were in two different rooms, hundreds of miles apart -- Ortiz in Wake Tech's student center, Clinton behind a desk in her New York City office. The two were brought together through a teleconference set up by the League of Rural Voters and Generation Engage, a nonprofit group that aims to bring young people who aren't in four-year college settings into the political process.

Wake Tech was one of three locations selected to participate in the event. The other audiences were at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Wake Tech was selected because Generation Engage has one of its six offices in Raleigh, said John D. White II, the outreach coordinator for the Raleigh area. Other offices are in Charlotte; Miami; Washington, D.C.; San Jose, Calif.; and New York City.

"First, let me give a shout-out to Raleigh," said former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who lives in Chapel Hill, as he sat on a stage at Iowa State University and took a question from a Raleigh student.

At Wake Tech, close to 75 students munched on pizza and sipped soda as they listened to Democratic presidential hopefuls Clinton, Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barak Obama. Republicans Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were said to be on board, but in the end, only little known John Cox of Illinois took part from the GOP.

'Just give us' a chance

Ortiz came to Saturday's event for extra credit in a political science class. Though she can't vote in the 2008 presidential election, Ortiz, her voice inflected with her native Spanish, said she wanted to bring up the issue because of thousands of other immigrants like her.

Ortiz moved to Dunn from Honduras when she was 12 and is in her final semester at Wake Tech to get an associate's degree. She wants to go to a four-year college or university so that she can become a kindergarten teacher. But she can't because she moved to the United States as a child without proper documentation. She has a work permit to be in the United States, but to attend a four-year college, she said she needs either a green card or proper visa, which can be expensive and difficult to get.

"We're not asking for money or financial help," Ortiz said. "Just give us an opportunity."

Choosing sides

With the North Carolina primaries not scheduled until the spring, several students at Saturday's event hadn't made any decisions about whom to support.

"I'm just sitting back and waiting before I select a candidate," said Tom Williams, 22, a Wake Tech student who says he leans toward the conservative side.

But others, like N.C. State University senior Steven Horton, have their minds made up. Horton, 23, saw a video of Paul on YouTube this summer and quickly was enraptured by the Texas congressman. Horton joined the College Democrats, College Libertarians and College Republican on NCSU's campus and threw himself headfirst into Paul's campaign.

"Everyone I meet is going to find out about Ron Paul," he said.

sarah.ovaska@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4622