DACA recipient returns home to Kansas City metro after deportation to Mexico
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Monday, FOX4 shared how a Roeland Park, Kansas man was after visiting family in neighboring Mexico.
Evenezer Cortez Martinez is a DACA recipient and has had renewal status for over a decade. His latest application was valid through October 2026.
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It was a short trip he was allowed and approved to take, according to his attorneys. Yet, he was denied returning home after touching down in Dallas. He was sent back to Mexico City the same day.
'We've been telling people to be very cautious about traveling, and I think a lot of these things that are occurring are so unprecedented, in terms of, normalcy seems to be up in the air a little bit,' Rekha Sharma-Crawford, a Kansas City attorney, said Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, he's back with his Kansas family.
'I feel safer here,' Cortez Martinez shared with FOX4 on the emotional embrace with his family at the airport.
'There's peace in my heart, like how happy.'
Cortez Martinez says being in Mexico City felt frustrating, not knowing what would be next.
He was gone a little over two weeks, on a trip that was only supposed to last a few days. He was in Mexico City to visit a grandparent's grave.
'When I was little, he would always take me with him and show me around what he used to do and all that,' Cortiz Martinez said about his grandfather.
'I wanted to show my respect to him because he was the one who helped me out, too.'
His legal counsel, Rekha Sharma-Crawford, said the situation he was in shouldn't have been an issue at all.
'He had all the proper requirements. He met all the proper requirements. He did all the things correctly,' Sharma-Crawford said.
'There really shouldn't have been anything that required, not only for him to go through what he went through, and what his family went through, but for the courts to have to intervene in order to get us a favorable resolution.'
Cortez Martinez was back home within a week of the Sharma Crawford legal team on the case.
The reason he was denied re-entry was regarding a past 'order of absentia', one that Cortez Martinez says he never knew about.
'They just told me I had that order of removal; I think it was. Like I was telling my lawyer, and I was even telling CBP (Customs and Border Protection), I didn't know I had that order,' Cortez Martinez shared.
'I was surprised also. I had been renewing every two years, and I never had that problem.'
'It's not just a number. It's not just rhetoric. It's not just political speech. It's real life, a real family,' Shama-Crawford shared with FOX4 Wednesday.
'These moments, it's what keeps us going, I really do think that. We are grateful that we were able to connect with him and his family and we were able to get him the help that he needed.'
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Sharma-Crawford tells FOX4 the lawsuit has now been resolved.
'I'm just grateful that God is good. He put the right person to help me during this process,' he said, talking about Sharma-Crawford and her assistant, Fernando.
'Thank you for that team. They went beyond helping me come back.'
Sharma-Crawford said, 'The goal was to have the government recognize the validity of the documents that he held, and the legality of the documents that he held, and that's what occurred here.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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