Oscar Emilio Alfaro Albarran

The Project

Oscar (he/him/his) will focus on attaining safety for low-income immigrant survivors of violence in the Coastal Bend by conducting outreach and through direct legal representation centered on preventing international child abduction.

Recently the number of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the suburban and rural areas of the Coastal Bend in Texas has increased. Many of these immigrants are families who experienced violence in their home country, migrated to the US in search of safety, and now face criminal complaints filed by the abusive partner left behind. Others are victims or subject to threats of abduction of their children by abusive parents. Due to language barriers and the lack of information about legal remedies, many have limited access to justice, making them extremely vulnerable to these abuses that disproportionately harm immigrant communities and their children.

Fellowship Plans

During his Fellowship, Oscar will provide legal services in English and Spanish to immigrants facing violence, focusing on obtaining protective orders, custody, divorce, and, ultimately, litigating international children abduction cases. He will also educate immigrant communities and partner agencies about remedies specifically available for immigrant violence survivors. Finally, Oscar will build community partnerships to develop and disseminate resources to immigrant survivors of abuse.

Oscar’s experience as a child, his family roots divided between Mexico and the US, and a double law degree in Mexico and the United States inspired him to seek justice for those whose lives and family ties transcend borders.

The Project

Through the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Grace (they/them) supports eligible incarcerated voters to build power and voting access structures in jurisdictions without jail-based absentee ballot access through advocacy, coalition building, and impact litigation.

Over 480,000 incarcerated people on any given day are detained pre-trial, most of whom are eligible voters, as they are not serving felony convictions during their incarceration. Although a handful of jails allow people to vote in person inside their facilities, most voters across the nation can only vote through absentee ballots. Yet since 2021, at least nineteen states have passed restrictive absentee ballot legislation. These restrictions effectively make it even harder for an incarcerated person to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Fellowship Plans

During their Fellowship, Grace will advocate for incarcerated voters in states where restrictive absentee voting laws create barriers to jail-based voting access. Grace will use community lawyering methods to collaborate with local organizations and advocates, county officials, and incarcerated voters and build local power through sustainable coalition-building. Grace will lead educational campaigns for county officials and incarcerated voters to create local programs inside jails, provide voters with direct services, and devise litigation strategies when advocacy efforts are insufficient.

Grace’s experiences watching their older sister being unable to exercise her right to vote while in jail—despite being an eligible voter—fuels their work for incarcerated populations. Their sister’s eventual disenfranchisement propelled them before and throughout law school to support voters in a local jail in Austin, Texas vote.

The Project

Zoraima (she/her/hers/ella) works to protect the right to abortion and ensure meaningful access, particularly for poor people, people of color, and those living in rural areas, using innovative legal strategies.

In December 2021, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which presents a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and threatens to upend over 50 years of precedent protecting every pregnant person’s right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy before viability. The stakes are extremely high: If Roe v. Wade falls, abortion will likely be banned in half of the country. But even if Roe v. Wade is upheld in any capacity, hostile state legislatures will continue to push abortion care further out of reach, especially for poor people, people of color, those living in rural areas, and other marginalized communities who already struggle to navigate a complex web of restrictions.

Fellowship Plans

Zoraima’s project will use impact litigation, advocacy, and coalition building to protect the right to abortion and ensure those seeking abortion care have meaningful access to care, regardless of income or geographic location. Zoraima will craft and execute litigation and advocacy strategies based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Jackson Women’s Health Organization and challenge novel abortion restrictions passed in current and future state legislative sessions.

She will also help navigate barriers to abortion access, with an emphasis on barriers to accessing and providing care across state borders. Zoraima’s project will focus on building and strengthening coalitions throughout the reproductive rights, health, and justice movements to develop community-driven tools and guidance for patients, healthcare professionals, abortion funds, and practical support networks that seek or provide abortion care and support across state borders.

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The Project

Ashley (she/her/hers) works to protect the voting rights of Texans affected by the criminal justice system by expanding voting access to people incarcerated pretrial, people formerly incarcerated, and low-income communities.

Texas’ intentional disenfranchisement laws have left the state with the lowest rate of voter turnout in the country, and Texas has one of the highest rates of criminal convictions. Voting is even harder for those who encounter the criminal justice system—disproportionately Black, Latino, and low-income people.

Three-quarters of Harris County’s 9,000-person jail population are eligible voters; however, it is nearly impossible to vote in a Texas jail. People convicted of felonies are eligible to vote in Texas once they have completed their sentence, including parole or probation, but there is often tremendous confusion about eligibility. When people impacted by the criminal justice system do vote, they face obstacles, and they often live and work in communities with fewer resources for voting.

Fellowship Highlights to Date

In the first year of the Fellowship, Ashley has:

• Represented a client who was criminally prosecuted under the election code
• Participated in litigation challenging Senate Bill 1, which increases the criminal provisions in the Texas election code
• Conducted Know Your Rights and other presentations to Texas voters
• Participated in litigation challenging Texas’ discriminatory redistricting and voter roll practices, targeted at voters of color
• Investigated Texas’ policies of purging voters from voter rolls
• Received media and motions practice training

Next Steps

In the next year, Ashley plans to:

• Monitor the changing laws surrounding criminal prosecutions under the Texas election code and provide educational materials relating to these changes
• Continue to participate in ongoing litigation, including challenging the increased criminal provisions in the Texas election code as a result of Senate Bill 1
• Evaluate and respond to election concerns during the 2023 Texas legislative session

The Project

Hannah’s project focused on providing legal needs to disaster survivors to aid their recovery as well as preparing vulnerable individuals living in disaster-prone areas.

Her project addressed ongoing housing and economic needs from disasters in the Coastal Bend and the Rio Grande Valley. Residents in these areas survived Hurricane Harvey, frequent flooding events, and Hurricane Hanna. These areas will continue to be hit by disasters in the future due to the geographic location and the increasing threat of climate change. The resulting legal issues cause low-income individuals to recover from disasters far slower than their wealthier neighbors if they recover at all. Legal assistance allows low-income clients a path to recovery that would not otherwise exist.

Hannah is dedicated to providing direct legal services to low-income clients, towards the eradication of economic discrimination. After beginning her work on disaster recovery following Hurricane Harvey, she began to understand the specific ways in which disasters reveal and worsen economic inequality. As such, she has become an impassioned advocate for low-income disaster survivors.

Fellowship Highlights

Hannah provided legal services to residents of counties in South and West Texas directly impacted by natural disasters, with a focus on direct representation of low-income individuals before FEMA and the State of Texas as well as title clearing for individuals seeking recovery. She also worked to build coalitions and institutional knowledge to support the program’s response to future disasters by participating in Coastal Bend area coalitions involved in disaster work and in larger-scale advocacy efforts, both for long-term recovery efforts as well as ongoing efforts focused on disaster preparedness and new responses. Hannah also coordinated virtual wills clinics in her service area to assist low-income individuals with estate planning.

Hannah previously served as an Equal Justice Works Fellow in the Disaster Recovery Legal Corps.

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The Project

Caitlin’s project worked toward housing stability and income maintenance for persons with serious mental illness in Dallas County through direct representation, community partnerships, and education.

Adults with serious mental illness are at high risk for homelessness, institutionalization, and incarceration. In Texas, up to one million adults have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness; 36,000 of those individuals live in poverty and cycle between jails, emergency rooms, crisis services, hospitals, and other short-term crisis interventions. Access to civil legal aid is critical in breaking this cycle and promoting independence, self-determination and choice. Effectively serving people with serious mental illness requires a specialized and multidisciplinary approach with a strong emphasis on the whole person.

Caitlin has extensive experience in disability rights, with a specific focus on psychiatric disabilities. She aims to increase self-determination and autonomy through thoughtful, accessible representation. As a person with lived experience, she is passionate about providing person-centered legal services.

Fellowship Highlights

During the two-year Fellowship, Caitlin:

• Served over 300 people in a combination of advice, brief service, and full representation cases
• Established relationships with the mental health community in Dallas, including the creation of a new referral pathway for applicants with difficulty navigating traditional legal aid systems
• Conducted 18 presentations to over 400 providers and advocates on how to serve clients with mental illness, which resulted in numerous client referrals
• Presented five Know Your Rights trainings on advance directives and support documents, including psychiatric advance directives and supported decision making agreements
• Presented CLE trainings to attorneys in Texas on reaching clients with mental illness
• Created comprehensive toolkit for attorneys to use when working with clients with mental illness

Next Steps

Caitlin provided a comprehensive toolkit and streamlined referral system to facilitate continued service to this high-need population. Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas will continue to prioritize serving clients with serious mental illness throughout the entire service area.

The Project

Harjeen empowered, educated, and advocated for Texans impacted by a broken probation system through direct representation and policy work, all to end the poverty to mass incarceration pipeline.

Harjeen’s Kurdish heritage instilled in her a passion to work with and empower underserved populations. This project provided her an opportunity to do just that, while effecting lasting change in Texas’s criminal legal system.

Fellowship Highlights

• Waived a total of $59,247.69 in probation-related costs, fines, and restitution
• Achieved the early termination of probation for 10 clients, and avoided sentence extensions for 12 others
• Worked with a local coalition to stop the construction of an $80 million women’s jail in Travis County, Texas, which would have disparately impacted poor women of color and added to the state’s overwhelmingly carceral infrastructure
• Was elected to serve as a member on the Texas Bar Legal Services of the Poor in Criminal Matters Committee
• Wrote and published an Ability to Pay Guidance for Judges and Practitioners, outlining the statutory scheme regarding fines and fees in Texas, and highlighting recent legislative changes in that arena

Next Steps

After her Fellowship, Harjeen will serve as the Director of the Probation Project at the Texas Fair Defense Project, continuing the work to dismantle Texas’s broken probation system. She will continue to provide direct representation to folks struggling to keep up with the fines and fees associated with their probation and will file requests for early termination of probation for eligible applicants. Additionally, she will work on statewide policy initiatives, including proposing bills related to probation during the upcoming 88th Texas Legislative Session. Furthermore, she will train judges and defense attorneys across the state on how to set low-income Texans up for success during their probation sentences.

The Project

Laura organizes clinics that address the unmet, pressing legal needs of people living in the Trans-Pecos region of far west Texas; during these clinics, TRLA offers holistic legal services to clients and establishes referral networks in remote communities.

Access to justice is an urgent issue for this rural area’s low-income population, who live across 31,000 square miles of high Chihuahuan desert. Laura will increase TRLA’s presence in hard-to-reach areas by conducting clinics that address recurring legal issues she has identified. By developing contacts in these areas, Laura strengthens TRLA’s referral networks, which connect TRLA’s holistic legal services to very rural communities.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid is the only legal aid organization that provides direct services to this vast area. TRLA’s office in Alpine, consisting of just two attorneys, is still a two-hour drive for many clients. Access to justice is a pressing need for low-income residents in this area.

Fellowship Highlights to Date

During the first year of the Fellowship, Laura has:

• Connected with community leaders and advocates to identify recurring, unmet legal needs in the Trans-Pecos region
• Researched procedures for protesting property tax appraisals and then used social media and weekly newspapers to provide information and education to low-income homeowners
• Provided direct representation to survivors of domestic violence in the Trans-Pecos area

Next Steps

In the next year, Laura plans to:

• Organize pro se assisted divorce clinics in areas where TRLA historically has low levels of engagement
• Develop a needs assessment for clinic participants that will enable TRLA to provide holistic legal services
• Further develop referral networks in rural communities where TRLA is not well-known
• Continue representing clients in family law matters

The Project

Chase fought for environmental justice and equitable community development in marginalized industrial communities along the Texas Gulf Coast as a Fellow with Lone Star Legal Aid.

Low-income and minority communities along Texas’ Gulf Coast have long carried the burdens of industrial growth in and around their communities—poor health caused by pollution, threats to public safety, and a lack of meaningful investment in the communities themselves. Community members have long lacked meaningful access to the legal and regulatory system which is meant to address those challenges. Chase sought to address this through sustained community lawyering in several of the most overburdened communities along the coast.

Chase was inspired to dig into the issues facing underdeveloped coastal communities when participating in a law school clinic. When he visited a port community to educate local leaders on their opportunities to advocate for themselves, he witnessed firsthand the daily challenges they face. Chase previously served as an Equal Justice Works Fellow in the Disaster Recovery Legal Corps.

Fellowship Highlights

During the two-year Fellowship, Chase:

• Obtained significant reductions in air pollution and community development benefits in environmental justice communities through filing comments, filing Civil Rights Complaints, and representation in administrative law proceedings
• Filed multiple sets of comments with state and federal agencies to help improve access to public participation processes and services provided to non-English speakers
• Advocated for environmental justice communities by filing comments with agencies regarding the development of infrastructure and air pollution monitoring networks
• Developed and piloted a multi-day educational workshop series covering environmental and economic justice topics for community members in coastal communities and gave 15 additional presentations reaching over 3,800 individuals
• Represented vulnerable communities by participating in three coalitions of non-profits and community groups aimed at furthering environmental justice in communities affected by activities of seaports and other nearby industry
• Connected community members with researchers aimed at studying the relationships between air pollution and childhood asthma in environmental justice communities

Next Steps

Chase will continue to further environmental justice and equitable community development as a staff attorney with Lone Star Legal Aid. He will use community lawyering skills to build new relationships and advocate on behalf of vulnerable communities in Lone Star Legal Aid’s service area.

The Project

Kassandra expanded Texas Legal Services Center’s Medical-Legal Partnerships to a school-linked health center and integrated legal interventions to address the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on at-risk youth.

Kassandra’s Fellowship sought to mitigate the long-term negative health effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) for patients at People’s Community Clinic’s school-linked health center in Manor, Texas. Remediating ACEs for youth is important for Manor, a town whose population has doubled in the last 10 years yet has a below-average median income. There are no legal aid offices in Manor, and there are no attorneys dedicated to meeting the health-harming and education-undermining legal needs of Manor’s youth. Kassandra focused on helping the clinic’s pediatric and adolescent patients meet their financial, educational, and personal needs, particularly in light of the evolving pandemic. Kassandra worked with clinicians to integrate these needs into the delivery of healthcare.

Kassandra first discovered the correlation between health and poverty during her undergraduate study of humanities, medical law, and ethics when she was confronted with bleak statistics: people living in poverty have increased health risks and are more likely to die at an early age. She became determined to volunteer and address these issues.

Fellowship Highlights

During her two-year Fellowship, Kassandra:

• Provided full representation, advice, and/or warm referrals to over 250 patient-clients on matters including disability and other benefits, guardianship, supported decision-making agreements, and education
• Conducted trainings with the pediatric and adolescent department of People’s Community Clinic and at the It’s Time Texas virtual conference, educating clinicians and other participants on topics including MLP services for at-risk youth, consent, and confidentiality issues for minors, bullying in the virtual education context, and pandemic-related legal updates
• Assisted TLSC’s MLP and Impact Litigation departments to draft an emergency rulemaking petition to the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, which resulted in a moratorium on utility shut-offs in the state during the pandemic with the PUCT estimating that the $30 million utility-relief program protected some 600,000 households from disconnection for non-payment
• Led a collaboration with Texas Law to draft a healthcare-informed amicus brief on the federal Medicaid work requirements case before the Supreme Court

Next Steps

Kassandra will join Texas Civil Rights Project as a Manne Family Fellow in their Racial and Economic Justice practice group, where she will continue advocating for underrepresented communities. TLSC will sustain Kassandra’s project by creating a permanent MLP pediatrics attorney position.

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