Guillermo Flores knows the hardship of being an illegal immigrant in America.
A native of Colombia, he came to the United States on a work visa – but it expired in a matter of months.
As a result, he spent years in limbo, not having the paperwork to be here legally but not wanting to go home.
His story has a happy ending, however.
Flores, 34, a software engineer who lives in Battery Park City, married an American citizen and got a green card based on that marriage.
Yesterday, he was among 260 immigrants sworn in as new citizens in Brooklyn federal court.
He immediately filled out a voter registration card – and vowed to use his new power as a citizen to try to influence the immigration debate now raging in Washington.
“This is my chance to make my decision relevant politically in this country,” he said. “My vote will now count.”
Flores, a college graduate, came to Washington in 1994 from Barranquilla on the Colombian coast.
After his work visa expired, he stayed on, spending some six years as an illegal.
“It was difficult to have access to services. It was difficult to travel,” he recalled.
Things began to change – though glacially at best – after he got married.
Flores applied for a green card and he and his wife, Heather Shaw, 30, an international business lobbyist, moved to the Big Apple in 2000.
Flores got a job with a company whose offices were in the World Trade Center. He was so good with computers that the firm didn’t care about his legal status.
Then came 9/11.
The company had its offices on the 105th floor of one of the Twin Towers. Flores lost his boss and six friends on that terrible day.
The attacks also delayed his green-card application, which was lost.
But his wife had contacts in Washington and used them to track down the application. In 2002, Flores received the coveted green card.
“It’s exciting,” his wife said of his becoming a citizen. “We finally come from the same place and it took us six years to get to that place.”