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With the campaign of Donald Trump, illegal immigration took center stage during the run up to the 2016 presidential election. With controversial speeches about a border wall and increased deportations, the debate reached new levels of fervor. And with President Trump in office, that debate rages on. Obama-Era Policy Under the Obama administration, prosecutors could give undocumented immigrants a choice between a) having their case closed and not being deported, or b) fighting for legal status against a prosecutor who will argue for deportation....

While same-sex couples have the right to marry, when they separate, same-sex parents are finding that many states’ laws have not caught up to the times when it comes to child custody or child visitation rights. Despite the fact that the country supports the rights of same-sex couples to be parents, the legal framework under which child custody and child visitation are decided fails to accommodate the family structure of same-sex parents....

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s proclamation that openly transgender individuals be discharged from the military, in addition to the lawsuits, there has been some pushback from an unexpected source: the Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis. After sources reported that the general was appalled by the president’s proclamation, soon after, he came out with a plan that effectively puts the ban on hold. While socially, and politically, transgender rights are a polarizing and controversial issue, it may not be possible to read anything more than prudence into Mattis’s actions....

Parents and caregivers need to be especially vigilant in making sure that young children aren’t left unattended in park cars, especially as the weather gets warmer. An average of 27 children each year are killed from hyperthermia that is caused by excessive heat in parked cars, and these accidents account for about 60 percent of non-crash vehicle fatalities involving children, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In a Consumer Advisory issued this week, the NHTSA recommends that parents and caregivers take a number of steps to make sure that these accidents don’t happen, including:...

Last fall, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) began investigating why there were so few female film and TV directors. Yesterday, the ACLU announced that the scope of the EEOC’s inquiry had widened to include Hollywood hiring practices overall. Melissa Goodman, director of the LGBTQ, Gender and Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU of Southern California, revealed the EEOC is “launching a wide-ranging and well-resourced investigation into the industry’s hiring practices....

A Florida pastor’s daughter was shot in the head after a gun accidentally went off at church. Twenty-year-old Hannah Kelley was taken to a local hospital in critical condition after the incident. The gun belonged to a church member named Moises Zambrana. Zambrana brought the weapon to church to show Dustin Bueller. Bueller, 20, had wanted to purchase a gun when he turned 21. The men were in a closet handling the weapon....

No one likes losing a job, and complaining about getting fired can seem like sour grapes. But you do have rights when losing a job and not every firing is legal. So how do you know if you’ve been wrongfully terminated? And, more importantly, how do you prove it in court? Here are some legal keys to a successful wrongful termination claim: “At-will” employment means that the employer can terminate your employment for any reason or for no reason at all....

Junk food addiction may soon lead to a new breed of litigation: junk food lawsuits. “This could change the legal landscape,” Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, told Bloomberg. Brownell indicates that she believes new findings about the addictive nature of our favorite “bad-for-you” foods may lead to tobacco-type litigation. Skeptics should understand what junk food does to your brain. Studies have shown that sugary and fatty foods can wreak havoc....

New York City has agreed to pay Michael Warren and his wife Evelyn $360,000 to settle accusations of police brutality and wrongful arrest. The couple, both civil rights attorneys, alleged they were assaulted when they tried to help a man they say was being beaten by police officers. The settlement was announced on Monday, just hours before the civil trial was set to begin. Jonathan Moore, a Manhattan injury attorney specializing in governmental misconduct, represented the couple....

On this Good Samaritan Day, a question for business owners: Can you face liability if you or an employee gives CPR to a customer? Performing life-saving aid like CPR on customers may seem like the conscientious thing to do, but it may expose your company to legal risks. Here’s general overview of what you need to know: Employees Save Lives, Open Door to Litigation? As a business owner you should strive to employ people who go out of their way to help others....

Law enforcement has long sought better ways to combat the scourge of sex trafficking that has grown by leaps and bounds with the help of the internet. On Tuesday, they received a significant boost as President Trump signed a law targeting online sex trafficking and enabling prosecutors and victims to sue websites for their part in the criminal activity. Websites Previously Shielded by Law Previous to this bill, websites relied on the protection of the Communications Decency Act, which said that companies weren’t liable for the content posted by their users – they were merely hosting the forum in which users posted certain things....

You know how people can rate a business on websites like Yelp.com? Well, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is about to create a government-operated site similar to Yelp. The CPSC is planning to make its database of consumer complaints available on March 11 at http://www.saferproducts.gov/, Reuters reports. The CPSC will now make thousands of these consumer complaints publicly accessible. While this may have consumers cheering, small businesses may have reason to be concerned....

The Northwest pilots on Flight 188 who missed their destination by 150 miles because they were distracted by their laptops brings up the important question of negligence. Who would have been held responsible if the pilots had not landed that plane safely and injured the passengers? Negligence is “conduct that falls below the standard established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm.” So what does that mean for the people who were on that flight if something happened?...

The owners of a Manhattan apartment building have agreed to pay $2 million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a group of female tenants. Landlord Stanley Katz, his son Stephen Katz, and superintendent William Barnason are all part of the agreement. The women accused the landlord of sexual harassment and of allowing his son and Barnason to target them with “humiliating and abusive behavior.” All three have also been accused of calling female tenants “whores looking for a free ride....

This year, the most popular small business legal issues on our Free Enterprise blog involved employment law. From asking for doctor’s notes to conducting legal exit interviews, our business-minded readers seemed most hungry for guidance on how best to manage employees. That’s not to say we didn’t cover other major legal issues affecting entrepreneurs, including small business cyberattacks and the delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate. Still, some stories resonated more than others....

It’s not easy delivering toys to children worldwide in a single night. So maybe Santa’s sleigh rolled a stop sign trying to save some time, and caught your car right on the rear fender. Did he stay long enough to give his insurance information? And since Santa was driving a delivery vehicle for work, how does that affect your injury claim? Here’s what you need to know if Kris Kringle crumpled your bumper:...

After yet another failed self-castration, Virginia prisoner Ophelia De’lonta is suing the state in federal court, seeking a ruling that commands the state to pay for inmate sex change operations. Though she’s already receiving hormone replacement therapy, she believes that a sex change operation is the final step in treating her gender identity disorder. While this may be true, should states have to pay for inmate sex change operations? Ophelia De’lonta has been in prison since the age of 18, and is serving a 70 year sentence for robbery, drugs and firearm possession....

The things you say right after a car accident can come back to bite you, and that doesn’t just mean the words that come out of your mouth. It also means your tweets and other social media posts. This isn’t just a hypothetical issue. Omiesha Daniels found out the hard way that what you tweet can hurt your court case, even if you’re the plaintiff. Daniels was injured in a car accident that happened in Georgia, and sued for $1....

A topic that comes up from time to time in the news is the property right known as a property easement. Put most simply, an easement is the right of use over the property of another. Due to the nature of the blog, we usually do not have the time to go into detail about what an easement entails. Today we will go over the terminology of easement rights for your future reference....

You’ve probably heard the word “probate” tossed around more than a few times. Maybe you’ve attended a dinner party where one of your know-it-all friends has said to you, “You should really get your estate together so you can avoid probate.” And, you probably nodded your head, pretending to understand what he was getting at. All the while, you’re wondering to yourself - what is probate? And why do people want to avoid probate in the first place?...