In Texas, an expunction means the Court destroys all records of both the arrest and any court proceedings, so they can’t ever be found on any government maintained database by anyone. Any record of the expunction also gets destroyed. It’s like the arrest (and the expunction) never happened. In order to receive an expunction a Petition must be filed with a court that has jurisdiction requesting that all records pertaining to a specific offense(s) be destroyed. If a court finds a petitioner is entitled to an expunction they will issue an Order granting the expunction.

In Texas, you can expunge an arrest as long as you didn't get convicted or receive some type of community supervision. You can also expunge a Class C Misdemeanor if you've completed a deferred adjudication (probation, treatment, or community service).

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Every year MABA San Antonio is proud to offer scholarships to students in the community. Our annual Pete Torres Jr. Memorial Scholarship event is our signature charitable event for the year.

Thanks to MABA events like Dia De Los Muertos, Pachanga, our annual golf tournament, and other activities, MABA is able to raise funds specifically for our scholarship program. 

AccessAbility Fest is a gateway to information, resources, and opportunities for individuals working to overcome barriers caused by physical, cognitive, sensory, and mental health challenges.

AccessAbility Fest is for individuals of all abilities, including those with physical, developmental, sensory and/or mental health challenges, and it connects over 4,500 individuals to resources each year, creating opportunities for disability service organizations to collaborate, make referrals, and provide more comprehensive services.

This program is held in high traffic venues to raise awareness about the value, successes, and potential of people with disabilities among the general public.

The festival is FREE and OPEN for the public to attend

Leadership SAISD is a FREE 9-month educational leadership development program that provides community members with the information and skills to become thought leaders around education. Participants develop a nuanced understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities facing school communities with topics such as school finance, policy and advocacy, and educational equity.?Cohort members meet once a month to learn from experts in the fields of education, leadership, equity and public finance. Together, participants and experts explore the issues that shape public education today with an emphasis on real-world solutions and practical problem-solving. Seminars provide a factual, non-partisan look at how schools function. Cohort members explore the most relevant topics in education today including:
• School Finance?
• Education Policy
• Education Advocacy
• Mental Health in Schools
• Diversity and Equity?

Graduates of Leadership SAISD are equipped and positioned to serve in several leadership roles, including Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), site-based decision-making committees, Board of Trustee task forces, non-profit boards, and volunteer positions. Moreover, LSAISD graduates have the knowledge and skills to effectively advance the broader discussion around public education within San Antonio.

LASSA's mission is to provide trauma-informed, client-centered legal services to victims from intake to case closing. To that end, LASSA case handlers and advocates focus on client safety, privacy, and legal goals.

Services and Activities:
• Advise and represent survivors so they can achieve their civil legal goals, including divorce, child custody, obtaining unpaid wages, maintaining benefits, fighting workplace discrimination, and obtaining work permits and immigration status for immigrant victims of violence
• Help survivors ensure their safety through protective orders and special safety requests at work and school
• Help survivors safeguard their privacy by protecting their health information and counseling records, and by assisting them in managing ongoing privacy concerns
• Provide survivors with access to legal services by conducting trauma-informed intakes through our LASSA hotline and by reviewing legal requests for survivors at shelters and rape crisis centers
• Help empower survivors and their families by coordinating cross-agency referrals from and to community partners
• Survivors of sexual violence can apply for our services by calling our intake number (800-991-5153). Legal advocates at shelters and rape crisis centers also conduct intakes for survivors.

For more information, please visit LASSA.

TRLA represents, advises, and advocates for young people facing a range of legal, educational, and economic problems.

• TRLA’s Education and Special Education Team helps students, including those with disabilities, handle school-related issues;
• The Juvenile Justice Team represents young people facing criminal charges, including Class C misdemeanors;
• Texas Foster Youth Justice Project helps current and former foster youth understand and protect their legal rights.
• TRLA may also be able to help if you’re a young person living in homelessness and need assistance with legal issues related to housing, securing CPS documents, and public benefits. For help with these problems, please call our general legal services hotline (888) 988-9996. TRLA staff will guide you through the application process.

Since 1999, TRLA has partnered with rape crisis centers, shelters, and other agencies and organizations that provide direct services to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The partnerships, known as LASA, provide important results in terms of providing services to survivors and strengthening the ability of partners agencies to expand their reach in their communities. Through LASA, survivors can apply for a full range of legal services at the agencies where they first turn for help, which promotes a safe, holistic, and victim-centered approach to their cases.

TRLA partners with medical providers in San Antonio as part of a national effort to improve the health and wellbeing of low-income people by combining the expertise of attorneys and medical practitioners. Our Medical-Legal Partnership program (MLP)—part of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnerships—operates in recognition that poor health is linked to poverty and related problems such as substandard housing and inadequate education. In fact, research has established that about 60 percent of an individual's health is determined by social and economic factors such as personal and family stability, income and health insurance, immigration status, housing and utilities, and education and employment. As such, TRLA's MLP staff work with their medical partners—both hospitals and health clinics—to identify the legal problems that compromise the health of their patients. Once TRLA's medical partners have referred patients for free legal services, MLP staff work to resolve adverse legal and administrative problems to the benefit of both the clients and their families.

Medical-Legal Assistance for Families (MLAF) operates as a partnership between TRLA, the Children's Hospital of San Antonio, and the Baylor College of Medicine's Pediatric Residency Program at the Children's Hospital. Under the partnership, TRLA accepts patients for legal assistance by referral from the two pediatrics departments. TRLA also accepts referrals from the pediatrics department at UT Health San Antonio. Our legal priority areas are education, housing, public benefits, and guardianships for children transitioning to adulthood.

The Texas Foster Youth Justice Project provides free legal services for current and former foster youth throughout Texas. The team helps youth with various legal and administrative matters such as obtaining copies of CPS records; erasing criminal and juvenile records; and accessing foster youth benefits and programs that help in the transition from foster care to independence.

In partnership with St. Mary’s University School of Law Pro Bono Program and Texas Law, Pride Center San Antonio's Richard and Ginni Mithoff Pro Bono Program offers gender marker and name change clinics for transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. The project aims to assist people align the gender presented on their government identifications, driver’s licenses, and other documents with how they identify.

Changing one’s identification to align with who they know themselves to be is a major milestone and affirmation of their identity. These corrections have the potential to curb discrimination, violence, and having to be outed as transgender every time they have to present their ID.

Free legal counsel; some documentation fees may apply.

A psychiatric advance directive (PAD) allows patients with serious mental illness to state their preferences and make other advance decisions about their care in psychiatric hospitals. TRLA is partnering with St. Mary’s School of Law to host a weekly PAD clinic at the Haven for Hope courtyard. Clinic clients will have the opportunity to execute Psychiatric Advance Directive (PADs), Medical Power of Attorneys, and Declaration of Guardian.

Our services are open to everyone who meets our income guidelines and case priorities. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation.

If you or a loved one is currently facing deportation or immigration detention, please call the Línea de Defensa Comunitaria/Deportation Crisis Hotline: (512) 270-1515

Click here or call the office to apply for services.

The RAICES Refugee Cash Assistance Program is a state-funded program, supporting newly arrived refugees to become self-sufficient. Services include:

• cash assistance
• refugee medical assistance enrollment
• employment assistance referrals

Must be in one or more of these groups:

• Newly Arrived Refugees
• Special Immigrant Visa holders from Iraq and Afghanistan
• Asylees
• Victims of Trafficking
• Cuban and Haitian Entrants

Free

Rays of Freedom is a non-profit with the main goal of helping meet the needs of the rapidly growing population of immigrants facing deportation, breakup of families, loss of employment and other disruptive effects of new and anticipated government policy changes by providing low cost immigration application services.

Rayos De Libertad es una organización sin fines de lucro con el objetivo principal de ayudar a satisfacer las necesidades de la población en rápido crecimiento de los inmigrantes que enfrentan la deportación, la ruptura de familias, la pérdida de empleo y otros efectos disruptivos de los cambios de políticas gubernamentales nuevos y anticipados servicios de solicitud de inmigración de bajo costo.

Services Offered:
* Family Petitions
* Adjustment of Status/ Counselor Processing
* Citizenship
* Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
* Temporary Protective Status (TPS)
* Asylum Credible Fear Interviews