The fight for migrant rights: Documentary tells the story of the first undocumented attorney to take on the US Supreme Court

Becoming a voice for the voiceless became a mission for lawyer Luis Cortes Romero.

Cortes Romero, who was born in Mexico, grew up with his parents and siblings in Redwood City, California. He did not realize his citizenship was an issue until he tried to go on a class trip to Europe and was unable to obtain a passport. His father attempted to legalize his son’s status and in turn was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported, which tore Cortes Romero’s family apart.

The experience inspired Cortes Romero to enter the Chicano Studies program at San José State University and later attend law school. His decision to become a lawyer not only changed his life but also countless others.

The fight for migrant rights: Documentary tells the story of the first undocumented attorney to take on the US Supreme Court

Cortes Romero became the first undocumented attorney to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Cortes Romero, who is an immigration attorney and a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, went before the Supreme Court in 2019 with a powerful legal team to fight the then-President Donald J. Trump’s administration’s attempt to rescind DACA. Cortes Romero was part of a team of civil rights lawyers who sued the U.S. government to save the program. More than 700,000 DACA recipients were at risk of being exiled with the program being revoked.

Cortes Romero’s legal battle is documented in “From Here/From There (De Aquí/De Allá)” that premieres on the PBS series VOCES on Tuesday, July 9. The documentary was produced and directed by Marlene “Mo” Morris.

“My first kind of emotion, if I’m going to be really honest, was feeling a little guilty in that as we were working through these cases and we were working to fight the U.S. government with the Trump administration, I was so focused on that and my attitude with the documentary folks was like, ‘Hey, you guys can be around if you want, but don’t get in the way,’ ” Cortes Romero said. “So I’m sure I wasn’t always the best subject. Sometimes I would call them last minute and say, ‘This is going on, I should have told you earlier, but I super forgot.’ Like, here it is. And sure I did not make Mo’s life very easy and I’m just trying to catch up and do everything as we’re trying to do this work. So, I felt a little guilty. I was like ‘Oh, this came so good’ and I feel so bad for making life like harder than it needed to be.”

He said he continues to apologize to Morris for being so focused on the case and not keeping the filming of the documentary in mind.

“I told my clients this all the time, is that I really want to make sure that their stories are heard and that’s one of the things I promised the plaintiffs, the six DACA recipients who were representative of the case,” Cortes Romero said. “And I thought, I don’t know if we’re going to win, but I do know that I want to make sure that they hear your stories. I consider myself a bit of a storyteller in how I tell my clients stories with the court and whoever will listen, but then to have my story be told by another storyteller, it felt a little weird to be like in that space, but it did give me a glimpse as to what it kind of feels like to have your story be told.”

Cortes Romero said looking back it feels unreal that he and his team took on one of the most powerful governments in the world and won.

“We were hopeful, but we were also very clear-eyed about what could happen,” he said. “We didn’t think that the oral arguments really went in our favor. So we were very worried. And I think we were just bracing for impact like, ‘OK, we’re gonna lose. Just how bad is it going to be?’ I think we were all just waiting kind of for that.”

He said he was in disbelief when he and his team received the Supreme Court’s decision that they won the case.

“It was really a long shot,” he said. “Now it feels very empowering that when we had this big obstacle, in the moment where it looks very grim, and in the moment where it looks like maybe it’s not going to go our way, we were able to prevail.

“And I really hope that some of the DACA recipients now, but not just them, but like the folks who couldn’t apply for DACA, because there’s a growing generation of young people right now who are graduating from high school who can’t apply for DACA, that when they feel hopeless, that they’ll take a look at something like this and say, ‘OK, even when it doesn’t look that great, as long as we kind of keep (going) there is a chance that we can come out on the other side of this prevailing’ and so hopefully they feel empowered by this.”

Cortes Romero continues to stand up for DACA recipients and protect the civil rights of immigrants.

“The fight still continues, both for DACA recipients and for everybody else, all the other families who are either here seeking asylum or are fighting to stay together with their families,” he said. “And so the fight definitely continues now that Trump’s not in office, it’s just a bit quieter than I think people are used to. My politics is strictly in having human rights for immigrants. And so, whether that’s the Obama administration or the Trump administration or the Biden administration, I will hold them all accountable for the promises that America made to people.”