Luis Cortes Romero made history in 2019 when he argued at the Supreme Court in support of DACA, the so-called “dreamers” immigration program. The Redwood City-raised attorney became the first undocumented person to present a case at the nation’s highest court.

And he might have to do it again.

That story is told in Oakland filmmaker Marlene “Mo” Morris’ documentary “From Here/From There (De Aquí/De Allá),” which premieres at 10 p.m. Tuesday, July 9, on KQED and streams at pbs.org and on the PBS app. The film, which played at DocLands in May, is broadcast as an episode of the PBS series “VOCES,” which examines Latino arts, culture and history.

On this day, Cortes Romero is concerned with the present. He spoke with the Chronicle in a video interview from his office in Seattle a day after the latest session of the Supreme Court ended with a ruling that granted broad powers of immunity to the President of the United States, a decision that, along with a flurry of others in the past few weeks, has the potential to reshape the federal government.

“The conservative bloc of the Supreme Court primarily is making decisions without much concern for its popularity,” Cortes Romero said. “Or, for that matter, there isn’t much concern about the amount of people (their decisions) will (negatively) impact. If it’s going to have an impact on millions of people, then so be it. They’re committed to their views.”

Cortes Romero also mentioned other recent controversial rulings, including limiting the power of federal regulatory agencies; siding with a Jan. 6 rioter over the government; rescinding a ban on bump stocks, which increase a semiautomatic weapon’s rate of fire to hundreds of bullets per minute; and essentially criminalizing unhoused people for sleeping and camping outside.

Much of that was made possible by the three conservative justices former President Donald Trump appointed to the Supreme Court, and Cortes Romero has a solution. Many have suggested the court should expand from nine to 13 judges; he supports that — along with term limits — but with a caveat.

“Some state supreme courts will have a panel of, let’s say, nine justices, who will hear the case, but 13 justices altogether,” Cortes Romero said. “The justices who would ultimately hear the case get picked by random. So then a replacement of a justice is not as consequential as we see it now. I think it would depoliticize the court to a certain degree.”

Cortes Romero was born in Mexico but was brought to the United States by his parents when he was a toddler. He found out he was undocumented when as a middle schooler in Redwood City he couldn’t join his class on a trip to Europe.

Soon after, his father was deported back to Mexico. Luis became an angry teenager figuring someday the government would come for him. He dyed and spiked his hair to look punk, got tattoos and became proficient on a skateboard. He majored in Chicano studies at San Jose State, then made a 180-degree turn no one saw coming: He decided to go to law school.

“My friends said ‘You argue so much you should be a lawyer,’ ” he recalls in the documentary.

He went to the University of Idaho’s College of Law, then began practicing in Seattle, where he specializes in immigration cases. 

In 2012, President Barack Obama established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was designed to protect people who were brought into the U.S. as children without documents from deportation. It allows recipients, dubbed “Dreamers,” to attend school and work — though they are still not “legal.”

Cortes Romero could finally stop looking over his shoulder. That is, until Trump was elected. Less than a month after his inauguration, in February 2017, Daniel Ramirez, a 23-year-old Dreamer who had no criminal record, was arrested in Seattle and scheduled for deportation.

Cortes Romero was on the legal team that took the case. After the Trump Administration officially rescinded the DACA program, the young lawyer would become part of a consolidated legal challenge headed by conservative lawyer and experienced Supreme Court litigator Ted Olson, who sided with the Dreamers.

That’s when Morris got involved. The filmmaker had once been an immigration lawyer and had followed the DACA case closely, so she asked Cortes Romero if she and her camera could follow along.

“I was just really intrigued and amazed that people who were at risk themselves were taking on the government,” said Morris, who joined Cortes Romero on the video interview from Oakland. “I think that the biggest thing about changing public opinion is getting to know individuals. I’m hoping that people, through really spending an hour getting to know Luis and his family and his community, and the people that he’s fighting for, will come away with a more humanistic sense (of immigration issues).”

The Supreme Court — at a time when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a justice — ruled in DACA’s favor. However, it did not rule on the constitutionality of the program itself, only that Trump’s rescinding of it was illegal. That leaves DACA open to another challenge, and many believe the issue will come up before the Supreme Court again.

Under Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice is now defending DACA on the legal front, so Cortes Romero would almost certainly not be involved. But if that changes, and DACA is left to be defended from outside the federal government, he’d be ready.

“There is a sense of urgency that this is happening now,” Cortes Romero said. “We’re ready to act if we need to act.”

Reach G. Allen Johnson: ajohnson@sfchronicle.com