Luis Cortes is a successful businessman who owns four Red Bicycle Coffee & Crepes locations in Middle Tennessee. He’s lived in this country for almost 25 years. But he still must plan for what happens if he’s deported.
“In these homes that I come from, this is a conversation at the dinner table every night. Everybody’s saying, ‘What’s going to happen? What if?’ And I can guarantee you that every person that is here illegally has a plan,” he said.
His fear isn’t abstract. When Cortes was 17, his parents were deported.
“Just seeing my mom and my dad in handcuffs as a 17-year-old kid, I tried to punch the glass to get to them,” he said. “A sheriff, you know, just grabbed me and grabbed my dad and dragged both of us out … I remember just screaming to this sheriff’s deputy like, ‘Let him go. He’s not a criminal.'”
That left Cortes on his own. He had to leave school and work as a construction laborer and dishwasher to survive.
Like his mom and dad, Cortes is undocumented. But since 2011, he’s been protected by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama-era program that gives temporary legal protections for undocumented immigrants that were brought here as children.
The future of DACA is hazy. In December, incoming President Donald Trump expressed interest in keeping the program, but he had tried to end it during his first term. If the president makes good on his promise of deporting all undocumented people, that would include DACA recipients.
As of 2023, there were almost 600,000 of them in the U.S., and about 7,000 in Tennessee. They all have one thing in common: coming to the U.S. wasn’t their choice.
Cortes says his mother brought him here when he was 7. She told him they were visiting his aunt, but even back then, he knew better.
“What I remember from Mexico was poverty, no paved roads,” he said. “Our schools were literally falling apart. People knew that people left their towns to come for a better life. I mean, that was a known thing where I’m from in Mexico.”
Rachel Iacovone WPLNA red velvet crepe from Red Bicycle Coffee. Luis Cortes owns four Red Bicycle locations, including Woodbine and Tanger Outlets.
After his parents were deported, Cortes hung on to their dream of escaping poverty as an American. When he first heard about DACA, he jumped at the chance.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, do I qualify?’ And I didn’t because I never finished high school, because my parents had gotten deported and I went to work,” he said. “So I went and got my GED that same day.”
Eventually, he was able to go to college, work in the corporate world and start his own business. The work authorization from DACA expanded his options.
And Cortes isn’t alone. A 2023 survey from the University of California San Diego found that nearly 60% of people moved to jobs with better pay and benefits after receiving DACA. They were also more likely to make major purchases, like their first cars, and as they get older, more and more DACA recipients are buying houses.
Cortes says he’s grateful for the protections DACA has given him, but having to renew his status every two years feels demeaning.
“Do you know what it’s like having your fingerprints taken, having a mugshot taken every two years of you, just so that they say, ‘All right, you pass the test, you can keep staying here,'” he said. “Have I not proven myself already?”
Cortes first received DACA in 2011. In the 14 years since, Congress and presidents have talked about giving DACA recipients a path to citizenship. But that hasn’t happened. Cortes remains vulnerable to Trump’s promised mass deportations. His wife and kids are citizens, but the plan is for them to go with him if he has to leave.
“You know, I’m their sole provider,” he said.
It would also leave his four Red Bicycle locations without an owner. But Cortes still sees a future where things work out differently.
“I have hope, like I’ve always had, that good will come out of this and that God will touch the heart of whoever has the keys to this White House.”
If Cortes gets the opportunity to become a citizen, he plans to serve his community in a new way: by running for office.
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