This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 27, 2012 - From the time he was 4 years old, Frank Cortez knew America to be his home. As he grew up, though, he learned that he had to legal status, couldn’t legally drive or work.
That changed last year, when a judge granted Cortez a pathway to legal residency.
His journey was documented in the final hour of the Nine Network’s documentary “Homeland: Immigration in America.”
Cortez, who grew up and lives in Clarkton, Mo., didn’t feel changed by his change of status, he was the same Frank Cortez as always.
“I’ve always lived my life the same way,” he says. “The only difference is not having a driver’s license. I pretty much lived the same way as pretty much every other person.”
In the six months since the documentary aired, that’s still true. Cortez has a green card, granting him legal permanent resident status for 10 years.
But, with the legal right to work and drive, he has gotten to take a trip that he was afraid to take before.
“I’ve gotten back to Texas to go visit my family I have down there,” he says.
Cortez hadn’t seen them in years, but everyone was the same. It felt like no time had passed.
Naturalized immigrants came out in force for the Democrats in the last election, and Republicans have acknowledged that it’s a group that needs more attention.
But Cortez doesn’t think real immigration reform is coming anytime soon.
Politicians revive it every few years, he says, but nothing ever happens.
But one policy announced earlier in the year could help some members of Cortez’s own family. The president’s policy of deferred action, allowing a process for people who’ve been here since they were children to stay, work and go to school legally, has gotten national attention. And two of Cortez’s sisters have applied and are still waiting to get through the process.
If they’re successful, it will help his sisters legally drive and work, like the status change has helped Cortez. But it won’t change them. His family is just a normal family, he repeats.
“We’re all living normal lives like anyone else,” he says.
The big difference, now, perhaps, is that those normal lives are no longer happening in the shadows.