Even Cortez Martínez said he was still scared and hard to believe he returned to Kansas City, Missouri, with his wife and children after being deported to Mexico by U.S. immigration authorities in March.
"I wake up every now and then and say, 'It's a dream.' I feel happy, peaceful when I look at my wife and children, but I still doubt if it's really true that I'm here," his voice broke.
Cortez Martínez is a 40-year-old father and maintenance worker in Shawnee mission area, born in Cuernavaca, Mexico, but came to the United States with his family at the age of 4. He is one of thousands of people who apply for the dacigrativals nefrative to dacratival of to dacrative to daca the daca without making them a delayed action that makes them DACA, which is his adult, he is the law of DACA, and these people are delayed action in daca, and they are worried about deportation as long as they renew their DACA application every two years.
"I lived here for 36 years; I grew up here. I know nothing about the cities in Mexico," he said.
When his grandfather, Cornelio Martínez Domínguez, fell ill in Mexico, Cortez Martínez began the process of requesting preparatory parole, a travel permit that allows dreamers (such as DACA beneficiaries) to leave and return to the country.
Despite obtaining a travel permit and having a valid DACA status, when Cortez Martínez returned to the United States, immigration authorities at Dallas-Worthworth International Airport blocked him from re-entering the country and deported him on March 23.
"They told me I had an expulsion order," Cortez Martínez said, adding that he was not allowed to consult a lawyer and was told he had to leave the country immediately.
After spending two weeks in Mexico, he was allowed to return to Kansas City, but said the experience was painful: "It was very stressful. I thought I had lost everything."
According to a legal complaint filed by Cortez Martínez's lawyers and reviewed by Noticias Telemundo, the Customs and Border Protection detained Cortez Martínez at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and cited an expulsion order issued in June 2024, meaning he did not appear at the immigration hearing. But Cortez Martínez and his lawyers said he never informed him of a hearing and he was not aware of the deportation order being issued later.
"People often don't receive notices about what's going on in immigration courts," said Martinez's lawyer Rekha Sharma-Crawford.
When he visited Mexico from March, he was deported without contacting a lawyer or holding a hearing in front of an immigration judge.
In legal documents, the CBP claimed that Cortez Martínez's advance payment was "erroneously issued" and had the right to refuse to re-enter under President Donald Trump's expedited recall process.
The complaint held that “there is no formal hearing on dismissal of the immigration judge, preparatory parole holders cannot be prohibited from entering the country.”
Sharma-Crawford insists that Martinez has not evaded the authorities and that all his DACA renewals (accounting for every two years) have been approved by the government and no incidents have occurred. In fact, his current license is valid for October 2026.
“We asked the federal judges to take the government accountable and to make them recognize that the legal documents (Cortez Martínez) have his ownership and to get him back into the United States, which is obviously done, so the part is complete.
"At this point, we gave him time to return to family, to stabilize and to return to work. We will solve these problems in the future," Sharma-Crawford said.
The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection did not respond to Telemundo News' request for comment. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) responded in a statement that it would not comment on “individual immigration cases” due to privacy rules and could not “share, confirm or reject information about an individual.”
Early parole can be requested for humanitarian reasons, such as medical care abroad, visiting relatives or attending funerals, like Cortez Martinez did. It may also be required for educational purposes, curriculum or academic research or for work-related reasons such as completing tasks abroad or participating in interviews, meetings or meetings with international clients.
According to immigration experts and recent federal information, USCIS continues to accept and approve preparatory requests from current DACA recipients, as long as they are eligible.
U.S. citizens and immigrant believers said in a statement that the statement back to the United States “is not guaranteed even if appropriate documents exist.” The agency warns that anyone is subject to “immigrant inspections or inspections at the entrance to determine whether they can be accepted into the country and whether they are eligible for the immigration status they have applied for.”
CBP agents can conduct secondary inspections of dreamers upon returning to the country, said Ruby Powers, an immigration attorney in Texas.
"It is at its discretion because they have the right to do it - maybe there is something on the record that they don't know, and when they travel, the authorities find out," she said. "When they are children, an expulsion order may be issued without the parents notifying them or never informing them. The government can issue a travel ban to the countries they visit in the middle of the plane.
Lawyers and immigration experts say that while the Trump administration has not announced preparatory parole for those who are eligible, such as DACA recipients, TPS holders or those who have undergone asylum procedures, they recommend anyone who is eligible and plans to consult with a lawyer abroad before that.
“The main risk that DACA recipients face when leaving the U.S. on early parole is that the (DACA) plan can be revoked or terminated when the Trump administration leaves the country,” Elizabeth Jacobs said.
"In this case, they may have difficulty entering the country. Many DACA recipients may be subject to a three to a decade-long entry ban," Jacobs said.
DACA has been the subject of the first Trump administration and Republican state to eliminate multiple legal efforts of the program over the past seven years. In January, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled parts of the Texas DACA, where new applicants would be protected by deportation but without a work permit or able to apply for a driver's license.
Cortez Martínez said he has been working to return to work and spend time with his family since returning to Kansas City on April 8. Despite his deportation pressure, he has some advice for DACA recipients who, like him, must travel outside the United States
"They need to contact the attorney because it's not only going to leave, but back, and if they've gone through my experience, they shouldn't be silent and seek help. To be eligible for DACA, we have to pass (background) checks, clean records of crimes, and do a good job of taxes and support. We shouldn't pay taxes and support. We shouldn't be afraid."
An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.