Melania Trump’s Slovenian Parents Become Us Citizens
President Donald Trump’s parents-in-law have become US citizens in a private ceremony.
Viktor and Amalija Knavs, Melania Trump’s Slovenian-born parents, took the oath of citizenship in New York on Thursday, their lawyer confirmed.
He said the pair had been living in the US on green cards sponsored by Mrs Trump.
President Trump has railed against family-based or “chain” immigration in the past.
He argues instead for a merit-based system prioritising professionals over relatives, and has drawn criticism for his vocal attacks on immigration laws and immigrants.
CHAIN MIGRATION must end now! Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE!
Donald J. Trump
Melania Trump became a US citizen in 2006, after entering the US on a coveted Einstein visa for people of “extraordinary ability” in 2001 when she was working as a model.
Under US immigration law, Melania’s parents would need to have had green cards for at least five years before they could apply for citizenship.
According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website, an average naturalisation application in New York takes between 11 and 21 months and is dependent on numerous character and residency requirements.
Their lawyer Michael Wildes – who attended the ceremony with them – told reporters outside they had met the five year condition but refused to give more details, according to the New York Times.
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In an address to the Republican convention, first lady Melania Trump rhapsodised about the joy of US citizenship raising once again the question of exactly how she attained it.
I arrived in the United States when I was 26 years old, Ms Trump recalled. Living and working in the land of opportunity was a dream come true, but I wanted more. I wanted to be a citizen. After 10 years of paperwork and patience, I studied for the test in 2006 and became an American citizen.
It is still one of the proudest moments in my life, because with hard work and determination I was able to achieve my own American dream. As an immigrant and a very independent woman, I understand what a privilege it is to live here and to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that we have.
While the whole speech was received by different audiences with sympathy, mockery and cynicism, this section also attracted suspicion and anger.
Noteworthy on Melanias so-called American dream, under her husbands immigration policies, neither she nor her parents would be here, wrote one Twitter user.
What Problem Exactly Is Trump Trying To Solve
Underlying all of this is the strong suspicion among Trumps critics that racism is at the core of his immigration policy.
Trump has a long history of racist statements and actions, and at a now-infamous White House meeting, he reportedly told senators that he didnt want people from shithole countries coming here and that the United States should, instead, seek immigrants from places like Norway.
That was not a commentary about the overall volume of legal immigration, the balance of skills versus family ties as entry criteria, or the precise labor market impact of immigrant flows. Instead, he seemed to be expressing a form of disgust at African and Latin American immigration in contrast to European immigration.
That Trump does not seem especially outraged about violating the terms of a visa or alarmed by chain migration when the visa violator and chain migrants are all white people from Slovenia underscores that suspicion.
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Would Trump’s Own Son Be Affected By An Order Eliminating Birthright Citizenship
President Donald Trump recently revealed plans to sign an executive order that would end birthright citizenship for babies born in the United States to parents who arent citizens. Does that put his own son at risk?
“Fun fact,” starts a post that appeared on Facebook on Nov. 1. “Barron Trump was born in March 2006 and Melania wasnt a legal citizen until July 2006. So under this executive order, his own son wouldnt be an American citizen.”
This story was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.
Lets start with Trumps youngest child. Barron, who turned 12 on March 20, was indeed born in March 2006. His mother, Trumps wife, Melania, is from Slovenia. She was working in New York as a model and dating Trump when she applied for a visa in 2000, according to the BBC. She secured a green card when her application was approved the following year. On March 20, 2006, she gave birth to Barron in New York and she became a U.S. citizen four months later in July 2006.
The news about Trump targeting birthright citizenship was reported by Axios, which is airing an exclusive interview with the president today, Nov. 4. A story including excerpts of that conversation was published on Axios website on Oct. 30, and while the article discusses when Trump has the power to use an executive order, it doesnt explain what, exactly, such an order would say in this case.
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How Exactly Did Melania Trump Get A Visa For Extraordinary Abilities
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The Slovenia-born Melania Trump has been a U.S. citizen since 2006, but some, like The Washington Post,are questioning how she was able to secure her EB-1 visa in the first place. In 2000, Trump was dating Donald Trump and applying for the so-called Einstein visa, usually reserved for those with extraordinary ability.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the eligibility criteria for the EB-1 includes professors, researchers, multi-national managers and executives, and those with extraordinary ability, which requires applicants to provide evidence of a one-time achievement such as a Pulitzer Prize or Olympic medal, or show that they have met 3 of the 10 listed criteria including published material about you in professional or major trade publications or other major media and performance of a leading or critical role in distinguished organizations.
Before her marriage, Melania Trump was a working model, appearing in runway shows and magazine editorials, but never achieving the enigmatic supermodel status. One of her more high-profile jobs included a photo shoot for the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated where she posed on the beach with an inflatable killer whale, which is not a euphemism for Donald Trump.
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Melania Trumps Parents Are Now Us Citizens
President Donald Trumps in-laws are officially United States citizens.
Viktor and Amalija Knavs, the parents of first lady Melania Trump, were granted citizenship Thursday, their immigration attorney, Michael Wildes, announced.
It went well and they are very grateful and appreciative of this wonderful day for their family, he said in a statement to CNN.
The first ladys office declined to comment.
Viktor and Amalija Knavs, who are from Slovenia, had been living in the United States with green cards and have been frequently spotted in Washington since their son-in-law assumed the presidency.
Wildes told CNN that as of February, the couple were living in the US on green cards a status that allows them to live and work in the US indefinitely and paves the way for citizenship.
But its unclear whether their green cards were granted by a process the President has sought to end.
I can confirm they are green card holders and legal permanent residents of the United States, he said. Wildes did not explain how they got those green cards, raising the prospect they were sponsored by Melania Trump or another family member based on what Trump has called chain migration or family-based migration.
The US allows a number of ways for US citizens and legal permanent residents to sponsor family members to come to the US permanently, including categories for parents, adult siblings and adult children, married and unmarried.
How Melania Trump Became A Us Citizen
Would Melania be able to enter the country under a new merit-based immigration system and how exactly would she meet the criteria for the EB1 visa?
Listen to the Immigration Show episode on this topic with audio with attorney Jon Velie & broadcaster Dave Kelso
Or watch the episode video.
The First Lady Melania Trump is an immigrant to this country and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2006. As an American citizen, Melania was able to sponsor her parents to become green card holders and eventually U.S. citizens just a few months ago. This is the type of immigration, known as chain migration, that the Trump administration is trying to reduce drastically.
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Melania Trump Statement On Immigration Status Dodges Key Points
Although she may be a proud citizen, Trumps own statements suggest she may not have followed all applicable laws, immigration experts say.
In a January profile in Harpers Bazaar, Trump said she would return home from New York to renew her visa every few months. It never crossed my mind to stay here without papers. That is just the person you are, she said. You follow the rules. You follow the law. Every few months you need to fly back to Europe and stamp your visa. After a few visas, I applied for a green card and got it in 2001.
In a February interview with Mika Brzezinski of MSNBCs Morning Joe, Trump repeated that characterization of her early years in the United States. I never thought to stay here without papers. I had visa. I travel every few months back to the country to Slovenia to stamp the visa. I came back. I applied for the green card. I applied for the citizenship later on.
The Trump campaign and Trump Organization representatives did not address questions about the type of visa Trump first used to enter the country, but it has been widely reported that she came here on an H-1B work visa. Writer Mickey Rapkin, who interviewed Melania for a May profile in the luxury lifestyle magazine DuJour, said she confirmed as much to him. When I interviewed Melania, I mentioned that shed come to New York on that H-1B visa, and she nodded in agreement, Rapkin wrote in an email to POLITICO.
Trump Acolytes Campaign To Defeat Ryan
There are quirky exceptions to people on a B-1 visa who are able to work certain domestic servants who are entering the country to accompany their employers who are in the country temporarily, added Greenfield. But I cant imagine that would apply to models.
If Melania was traveling to the U.S. on a B-1 business visa, there is a potential problem, said a Washington-based partner of a major national immigration law firm. She would not have been authorized to work in the U.S. while on a B-1 visa. In fact, if a customs agent encounters someone entering the U.S. on a B-1 visa and they know that the individual intends to work for a U.S. employer, the individual will usually be denied admission. In order to avoid being sent back to Slovenia, she may have had to lie about the purpose of her trip.
Visa fraud would call into question a green card application and subsequent citizenship application, said immigration lawyers thus raising questions about Melania Trumps legal status, even today, despite her marriage to a U.S. citizen.
Violations of U.S. visa law are hardly unusual, particularly in the modeling industry. It was a common practice in the 1990s in New York for less scrupulous agencies to bring in foreign models to work illegally on temporary business and tourist visas, according to Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance, a group that advocates improved labor standards for fashion models.
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Early Life Family And Education
Melanija Knavs was born in , Yugoslavia, now part of present-day Slovenia, on April 26, 1970. Her father, Viktor Knavs , was from the nearby town of Radee and managed car and motorcycle dealerships for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer. Her mother Amalija came from the village of Raka and worked as a patternmaker at the children’s clothing manufacturer Jutranjka in Sevnica. As a child, Melanija and other children of workers at the factory participated in fashion shows that featured children’s clothing. She has an older sister, Ines, who is an artist and her “longtime confidant”, and an older half-brotherwhom she reportedly has never metfrom her father’s previous relationship.
Knavs grew up in a modest apartment in a housing block in Sevnica, in the Lower Sava Valley. Her father was in the League of Communists of Slovenia, which espoused a policy of state atheism. As was common, however, he had his daughters secretly baptized as Catholic. When the Trumps met Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2017, Melania brought her rosary and asked the Pope to bless it.
When Knavs was a teenager, she moved with her family to a two-story house in Sevnica. As a high-school student, she lived in a high-rise apartment in Ljubljana. She attended the Secondary School of Design and Photography in the city, and studied architecture and design at the University of Ljubljana for one year before she dropped out.
Did Melania Ever Work Illegally
Melania was able to obtain her H-1B under the very specific fashion model category. One of the questions that may have come up is whether or not she had worked illegally. We cannot say one way or the other if Melania worked illegally, USCIS may or may not know. If Melania were on a visitor visa and did any work in the United States prior to obtaining the H-1B, she would have been working without authorization and then she would be deportable.
One of the things the Trump administration is doing that has never been done is analyzing permanent residency and citizenship cases to determine if they were obtained through fraud. If it were ever to come out that there was a record of Melania being a fashion model prior to the approval of her H-1B visa, then her citizenship could be taken away.
It used to be that in the United States, once youre a citizen, youre a citizen. You can be executed for treason. But very seldom will they revoke your citizenship. However, it is within USCIS power to revoke permanent residency or citizenship if they discovered that Melania had been a fashion model prior to her obtaining the H-1B.
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Receipts: Rep Ilhan Omar Has Been A Us Citizen Longer Than Melania Trump
CNN anchor Jake Tapper came with receipts after Trump launched his against four freshman Dem. congresswomen, telling them to go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. The tweet rant has, once again, sparked controversy.
The Twitter thread was aimed at Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar. Three of the four lawmakers were born here in the U.S.
Omar, who represents Minnesota, came to the U.S. from Somalia as a child. She soon became a citizen as a teenager in 2000, according to the Huffington Post.
Longer than the first lady, Tapper said.
Melania Trump got her citizenship six years after Omar and a year after marrying our current president.
Article continues after video.
In a CNN segment of Erin Burnetts Outfront, award-winning journalist April Ryan notes that Trumps tweets are likely part of a larger campaign strategy.
This is an election season and he wants to bring back that core, that core group that believes these crazy things, Ryan said, adding a quote from her colleague Andrew Gillum.
Mr. President, Im not saying youre a racist, but the racists think youre a racist.
Melania Trumps Immigration History Explained
Melania Trump came to the US in the mid-1990s to work as a model. But the specifics of her arrival, and the specific immigration status she had before getting a green card in 2001, were always unclear and have provoked a great deal of speculation about whether she was really a legal immigrant for the entire time she lived in the US.
The APs reporting doesnt answer all the questions that have been raised about Melanias immigration status, including how she got her green card in 2001. But it does establish a clear timeline for how she came to the US to begin with.
According to the AP, Melania Knauss first came to the US in August 1996 on a B1/B2 tourist visa. Tourist visas allow someone to stay in the US for six months, but they cant seek employment in the US during that time.
Then on October 18, 1996, the AP found, she got an H-1B visa for skilled workers allowing her to work legally in the US as a model.
The problem is that the APs documentation shows that Melania was paid for 10 modeling assignments between September 10 and October 15 while she was still on the tourist visa. In other words, she was working on a visa that didnt legally permit her to work and thus was violating the terms by which shed been allowed to come to the US.
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Acquisition Of United States Citizenship
Knauss came to the United States from Slovenia in 1996 on a visitor’s visa and was paid for 10 modeling jobs during the seven weeks before she obtained an H-1B work visa. In March 2001, while she was dating Donald Trump, she was granted permanent residency under the EB-1 program for people with “extraordinary abilities”. According to information from the Migration Policy Institute, only 2 percent of people in their field would be expected to qualify.The Washington Post in 2018 reported that at that time Knauss’s credentials included “runway shows in Europe, a Camel cigarette billboard ad in Times Square andin her biggest job at the timea spot in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured her on the beach in a string bikini, hugging a six-foot inflatable whale”. In the analysis by Joel Gunter of the BBC, ” does not appear at the time to have excelled in a niche area of modelling, nor won awards or had her work written about in significant publications” Gunter reports a conjecture that
he may have been boosted by high-profile testimonial letters, said Nita Upadhye, a U.S. immigration specialist at NNU Immigration Law. Testimonials form part of the application, and the more high-profile the reference the more weight it carries. If Mrs. Trump, already dating Mr. Trump at the time she applied, secured letters from luminaries in fashion, that would be significant, Ms. Upadhye said.
