ROELAND PARK, Kan. — Coming home has never been sweeter.
"When I landed here at home in Kansas, my heart felt at peace knowing I was going to see my family," Evenezer Cortez Martinez told KSHB 41 News on Wednesday, a day after coming back home to Roeland Park.
Cortez Martinez, painter and father of three, feared he'd never see his family again, after he was wrongfully deported and spent two weeks in Mexico.
"I thought I was dreaming," he said.
Cortez Martinez went to visit his grandfather's grave in Mexico, who recently passed away. He hadn't seen his grandpa in person since he was 4-years-old. That was the same year Cortez Martinez was brought to the United States.
Cortez Martinez built a life in the Kansas City area and is a painter by trade. He has a new position with the Shawnee Mission School District.
He hadn't been back to his birth nation in decades, but kept in touch with relatives, especially his grandfather.
"He was the one I got to talk to the most," Cortez Martinez said.
As a DACA recipient, Cortez Martinez was required to fill out paperwork called 'advanced parole' to leave the country. That paperwork was granted under the DACA program.
His attorney, Rekha Sharma-Crawford, said he did everything right.
However, upon his return on March 23, he faced some pushback at the port of entry at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
"In his instance, the officer tells him, 'Well, they must have given you your documents in error.' And that was just clearly not correct," Sharma-Crawford said.
Cortez Martinez said he couldn't believe what he was hearing as they barred his entry into the U.S.
"I was surprised, like, is this really happening?" Cortez Martinez said.
He was put on a plane and sent back to Mexico the same day with no recourse to defend himself, according to a lawsuit his attorney filed.
Cortez Martinez said he got off the plane in Mexico City, two hours away from his relatives in Cuernavaca. He had to call his uncle to come pick him up.
Meanwhile, back in Roeland Park, his wife and kids were in a panic.
Ashley Ruiz, his daughter, said she was following her dad's cell phone location and it seemed like he was at the Dallas airport longer than he should be.
"I told my mom, 'Don't worry, we'll just wait for him to answer us.' And it turned into hours. Until 12. Until 2," Ruiz said.
At 2 p.m., she received a text from her dad saying he wasn't coming home.
"I called my mom and we just started bawling our eyes out," Ruiz said.
Cortez Martinez said he talked to a couple of attorneys but they told him, in so many words, they were sorry and good luck.
A week into his stay in Mexico, Sharma-Crawford got involved. She filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, and the port director of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport.
The lawsuit said "a holder of an Advance Parole document cannot be barred from the country (removed) without a formal removal hearing before an Immigration Judge" but that Cortez Martinez was never given a hearing.
Sharma-Crawford learned there was an 'in absentia' removal order against Evenezer that stems back to when he first obtained DACA more than a decade ago. She said that order is unenforceable because he has DACA.
An "in absentia" removal order happens when a person fails to show up for a removal hearing.
However, Sharma-Crawford said he never "actually got proper notice of the hearing, so he didn't know to go to court."
"You can't prepare for something you don't know exists," she said.
Under the first Trump administration, Sharma-Crawford claims homeland security officials started randomly re-calendaring cases and restarting deportation cases. In Cortez Martinez's case, she said, they sent the notice to an old address and he never knew about it.
"I think what you are seeing is this increased enforcement mentality coming through, where you're seeing people who are doing things the right way getting caught up in what's happening in the climate of: remove everyone, deny everyone," Sharma-Crawford believes.
Finally, on April 7, they got word Cortez Martinez could come back home. He touched down in Kansas City on April 8 to an emotional reunion with his family.
"When I went through customs and they told me everything was good, I felt a relief, you know, like I'm out," Cortez Martinez said. "I feel blessed being home."
Sharma-Crawford said Cortez Martinez's DACA paperwork is current and valid until 2026.
To prevent further problems with the re-calendaring of removal orders, Sharma-Crawford says they plan to reopen his case and resolve the issue.
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