Melania Trump releases more immigration details, no records
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his wife Melania meet with family members of Phyllis Schlafly before the start of a funeral Mass for Schlafly, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016, in St. Louis.
WASHINGTON >> Melania Trump released a letter Wednesday from an immigration attorney that provided more detail on what she said was her legal pathway to U.S. citizenship. But the Slovenian-born wife of the GOP presidential nominee did not publish any part of her immigration file— official documents that would put to rest questions about whether she followed immigration law.
The two-page letter from New York attorney Michael J. Wildes, who has represented Donald Trump’s companies, also advanced an alternate timeline for a nude photo shoot that had been cited in news reports as possible evidence of Mrs. Trump working as a model in New York City without authorization. At issue is whether the photo shoot occurred in 1995— before Mrs. Trump has said she began legally working in the U.S. — or in 1996, as Mrs. Trump and Wildes assert.
The letter, posted on Mrs. Trump’s Twitter account, marks the first time that she has publicly identified the type of visas she held and gave specifics about her entry into the U.S. Mrs. Trump has often said she came to the U.S. legally and used her story to defend Donald Trump’s hard line on illegal immigration, an issue that he has made a signature part of his campaign.
In the letter from Wildes, it’s unclear whether Mrs. Trump provided him access to her full immigration file during his review. Wildes wrote that he had reviewed a series of news reports and “documents regarding the U.S. immigration history of Mrs. Melania Trump.” But the letter did not indicate which documents.
Wednesday night Wildes said in an interview with MSNBC that he did review Mrs. Trump’s entire immigration file.
“Not only did I see the stamps, I wanted to see all approval notices,” Wildes said of stamps in Mrs. Trump’s passport and documents detailing approval of her visas.
Don't miss out on what's happening!
Stay in touch with top news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It's FREE!
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not immediately respond to detailed questions from The Associated Press about the review and whether Mrs. Trump planned to release her immigration file for public examination. The immigration file is one of several documents that the Trumps have refused to make public including Donald Trump’s tax returns.
Wildes said he did not anticipate that Mrs. Trump would release her immigration files, saying “there’s no issue here.”
“If there was an issue here, I don’t know that I would be here in all honesty,” said Wildes, who described himself as a Democrat and a Hillary Clinton supporter.
In his letter, Wildes dismissed news reports that Mrs. Trump had been professionally photographed posing nude in New York City in 1995. He said Wednesday night that the photos were taken in 1996, after Mrs. Trump had a legal work visa.
Last month, the New York Post published the photos along with an article saying they were taken during a two-day photo shoot in Manhattan in 1995. The Post reported that the photos were then published in the January 1996 issue of the French magazine Max. But Wildes said that then-Melania Knauss was not in the country in 1995.
“The allegation that she participated in a photo shoot in 1995 is not only untrue, it is impossible,” Wildes wrote. He said he interviewed Mrs. Trump and “we ascertained that the photo shoot in question did not occur until after she was admitted to the United States in H-1B visa status in October 1996.” The letter does not give more detail on when Mrs. Trump said the photo shoot occurred.
Wildes wrote that Mrs. Trump first entered the U.S. on Aug. 27, 1996, using a B-1/B-2 visitor visa. About two months later, on Oct. 18, 1996, Wildes said the U.S. Embassy in Slovenia issued Mrs. Trump her first worker visa, an H-1B visa, which she used to work as a model. Wildes said she was issued five such visas between October 1996 and 2001, at which point she became a lawful permanent resident. Wildes said he did not represent Mrs. Trump during the process.
Wildes wrote that Mrs. Trump did not receive her green card through marriage. Instead, she applied in 2000 by self-sponsoring herself as a model of “extraordinary ability,” he said. She received her green card on March 19, 2001, and became eligible for citizenship in 2006, the year Mrs. Trump has said she became a citizen.
Simon Rosenberg, an immigration policy analyst who supports Hillary Clinton, said he’s skeptical about Mrs. Trump’s ability to qualify for self-sponsorship as described in Wildes’ letter. Rosenberg, the president of NDN/New Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said, “The letter resolves nothing.”
“If they have all the documents, then release them. It is the only way we can answer the fundamental question here which is whether Melania Trump followed immigration law,” he said.
William Stock, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said Wildes’ description of Mrs. Trump’s immigration history “is consistent with immigration law, as I know it,” though he noted the date of the photo shoot is an outstanding question.
The qualification to self-sponsor to receive a green card is that a person must show extraordinary ability and national or international renown. Stock said an immigrant seeking this type of green card “can be extraordinary in anything,” including modeling, and that the strength of a person’s reputation can be part of that proof.
Stock said Mrs. Trump or any other immigrant in the same situation would have been measured by the standards in their chosen field.
———
Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report.
———
Follow Chad Day on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChadSDay
44 responses to “Melania Trump releases more immigration details, no records”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You would think we would have had better tracking and oversight of sex workers and escorts immigrating from Slovenia….
Cheap shot even by your standards Ike. Another act of desperation by a scared and juvenile AP. All of a sudden they’re concerned about immigration policies and procedures. It’s pretty ridiculous as the whole basis of the doubt they are trying to plant rests on when she did a nude photo shoot and weather or not she got paid for it. The photo shot by the way was artfully done and if you haven’t seen it I’d advise you to take a peek. Looks a heckuva’ lot better than pictures of Waldo in her designer haz-mat suits and blue sunglasses.
Hmmmn, so taking photos in nudie magazines and in a threesome, is now, not considered within the parameters of a sex worker?? Please enlighten me?
Or even better, please dazzle us with tales of your fake degrees and fictional careers…I love it when folks can be so whimsical in their dream lives…..
whether – not weather – puleeze – you are a professional. You need to be accurate.
He only has fictional college degrees–so, it stands to reason, that his spelling is going to be a little suspect.
Please sir, or ma’am, or whatever, take pity on me. I was forced to quit school in the 6th grade to support my family. And while you are at can you ask Ike to define the word “threesome” for me, I am unfamiliar with the term.
That’s true. Weather or not, bring an umbrella. Lots of rain this week!
All of the monkeys ain’t in the zoo.
define the word “threesome”…HiLIARy,Bill and Monica?
Donald, Melania and Ivanka.
CEI – And yet, you wrote that you had been awarded a PHD (sic). Got it.
CEI…I betcha the libs posting here has been “thrilling” themselves at the sight of Mrs. Trump…even NBC’s Chris Matthews had his shorts turn into a buttfloss. lol
I guess, if uneducated, gold digging, I want a fat orange daddy to take care of me, former Eastern European escorts are your cup of tea….then, yeah. You’re a real sophisticated sort, huh.
ike..why so angry? you ok? ahhh no substance left in the barrel of spin…POLLS have you in a wad?
America. Please elect a president, with a first lady with 3 some nudies, a first in WH history. Lol. Just being sarc.
Former President Bill Clinton was a much more frequent flyer on a registered sex offender’s infamous jet than previously reported, with flight logs showing the former president taking at least 26 trips aboard the “Lolita Express” — even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail for at least five of the flights, according to records obtained by FoxNews.com.
Clinton’s presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported, but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by their initials or first names, including “Tatiana.” The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls.
Keonigo, since you pull up the President before BUSH, can we play the BUSH card??
c’mon bruddah..BUSH? you going Blame BUSH? c’mon nomaklidat
“EXTRAORDINARY ABILITIES” Yes, Believe me People, I TAKE ONLY THE BEST PRIME!!” ” ME MARRY AN AMERICAN WOMAN?””, ” BELIEVE ME PEOPLE, I’VE HAD MANY A MANY OF WOMEN,wink wink,AND I’VE MARRIED 3 FOREIGN WOMEN BECAUSE,,,THEY ARE THE BEST”!!! ” LET’S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN”….
seems like the AP and other news media are going after trumps wife, it shows there scared of trump winning the white house. typical liberals with mental disorders.
You may have missed the fact that Mr. Trump has made illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign. That makes matters of immigration in his life fair game.
Things like when he knowingly hired undocumented workers to work on a hotel project and then didn’t pay him.
And things like his third wife’s immigration history.
The illegal workers you claim he hired are likely the ones you supported and helped prolong their stay to an indefinite time frame after you told them to deliver anchor babies in the USA. Secondly, if he didn’t pay them then they must never have been hired. They probably showed up at his construction site and tried to pitch their labor in hopes of making some money. This is no different than the countless of illegals that gather around Home Depot and other hardware stores across the nation standing around looking to make easy cold hard tax free cash and then filing government paperwork that they don’t earn any money and file for benefits that even US citizens aren’t entitled to. Absolute disgrace and people like you that help them from a legal perspective to game the system are even more despicable and should be tried for treason.
dragoninwater – I know you don’t know anything, but that doesn’t explain why you just make things up on here all the time. Wouldn’t your time be better spent learning something? Anything would help at this point.
Everyone is entitled to a robust defense. Everyone. You have shown here over and over that you are spectacularly ignorant of the Constitution and law. You know nothing. But despite that, you feel compelled to comment on things. Sad and pathetic.
64, your man Trump talks big, acts like he’s the most perfect candidate ever. If he knows more than the generals, is the best businessman ever, is “very generous” in donating to charities (bribes), and more macho than Putin and that wimpy Mexican president, he has nothing to hide, correct?
Since he has nothing to hide, he should show off his tax returns and blow Hillary away, correct? You want him to put his critics to shame, correct?
You want to see his awesome tax returns, don’t you?
Trump moving up in the polls in spite of the increase of personal attacks. The skeletons in HiLIARy’s closet are just toooo much. Benghazi, Clinton Foundation, classified emails, health issues and many many more. Another great speech given by Mr Trump today. Listen carefully and “Make America Great Again”
sarge22..”Trump moving up in the polls…”, THAT explains the libs posting here. The “landslide” as one dummy posted a few times, is starting to slide the other way now.
This article is a hit piece to cover for hiLIARy’s inevitable downward spiral.
“…the Slovenian-born wife of the GOP presidential nominee did not publish any part of her immigration file— official documents that would put to rest questions about whether she followed immigration law.”
Melania, release your immigration files.
Donald, release your tax returns. And a REAL medical report, not one from your quack friend.
Finally, submit your “I quit” papers to the Republican party.
Taking into account Trump’s hounding of Obama about his citizenship status, it will be Karma if the media goes after Melania Trump for her immigration status. Did Obama pose nude for anything?
“Did Obama pose nude for anything?” What a ghastly nasty picture! You BAD. ^5
Haven’t you seen the pics of Obama at the bath houses.
sarge22…Oh thank GAWD no!!! But I did hear that’s where he got his money for his habit.
When will Hillary release the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches, the ones she was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for? They would illustrate how much of her is owned by the “Big Money Boys”, the ones that are donating such large amounts to her campaign.
That quack trump doctor looks like a nut.
Clingons, stop with the cheap posts. Madam Clingon needs Cash. She has to throw more money at Trump. Obama needs to get back to work and stop wasting money flying his jumbo ears on the jumbo jet.
Melania will take the Fifth like the Clingon Staff. It’s sad that the Clingons have no other recourse but to regurgitate old news to cover up the sputum.
Hey, what’s with the polls? What does it mean? Heard Pocahontas & Bernie are avoiding Caustic Hilliary. She has a contagious disease called pathological lying.
Rumor is it wasn’t a catheter bag but knee braces and before the debates they will sweep her for electronics.
And, so what about Melania? What difference does it make? No one got killed and body bagged.
Crooked Hilliary claimed she came under sniper fire in Bosnia? Maybe the concussion and lack of oxygen has caused permanent brain damage. Just what we need for a POTUS.
you being BAD again!!! ^5
Plain and simple, depart Melania! Trump and the Tramp!
so much in irony here …
It’s so sad to see the democrat party and their propaganda pals in the progressive news media meltdown in such a public manner. Every day brings more ridiculous hit pieces on Trump and anyone attached to him. Waldo’s commanding lead has turned into a deficit in just 2 short weeks. How could this have happened. She is one of the smartest women to ever grace us with her presence. Her staff of know-it-all progressives are equally intelligent. Yet they have allowed a carnival barker and snake oil salesman with orange hair and skin to get the best of them. The big beneficiary of Waldo’s meltdown is none other than little Barry Hussein. It has for the moment, taken focus off his utter failure as chief executive. Obamacare is not at all what it was sold as, the middle east is as violent and unstable as it has ever been, in a repeat of history he, like Waldo’s husband has handed an unfriendly regime nuclear weapons on a silver platter, his divide and conquer strategy as it relates to violent criminals vs. law enforcement has turned inner cities into war zones, his open border madness and immigration policies have taken jobs from americans and lowered wages, IRS, DoJ, FBI, EPA, DoD have all been politicized and turned into Barry lapdogs and were told that status quo Waldo is worthy of our vote.
So what about the Middle East. Dumb Bush should have never have started a war. What a drunk moron.
You mean the war that was authorized by congress by a wide margin of 297-133. One of those votes in favor of using force was then N.Y. senator Mrs. Clinton by the way. How soon we forget. Back to the drawing board junior.
BOOM
Based on a BIG lie from Secretary of State Colin Powell with CIA director Tenet sitting behind him at a UN conference. All the information presented by Powell about Saddam’s renewed chemical weapons program on a mobile rail platform was from a single Iraqi dissident that W German intelligence nicknamed CURVEBALL. Almost all Americans believed Powell, who at the time was well respected, and the reason why Congress and the American people believed the B S, unverified story of weapons of mass destruction. Would have been an entirely different story if Powell gave the story of the weapons of mass destruction and been HONEST and said it came all from a single Iraqi dissident that W German intelligence nicknamed Curveball. Also Powell could have mentioned that the US choose not to make ANY attempt at verification of the story either through US satellites or other by other means.
CEI you are an ignoramus, there was never a declaration of war. You seem to have a very short memory too, Trump paid how much money to stroke the Clintons when she was in office? And he supported the invasion. You are a typical Republican.
Correction. Use of force. And Waldo enthusiastically voted for it. Can’t re-write history cuz’