On November 4th of last year the Associated Press claimed to have uncovered documents which revealed that Donald Trump’s wife – who was Melania Knauss at the time – was being paid as a model during the year 1996. At the time, she was living in the United States using a visitor visa (also known as a tourist visa).
Per Business Insider, legal representation of Melania claimed not to be familiar with the documents. However, he didn’t challenge whether or not the documents were legitimate. If the documents were determined to be legitimate, they would confirm that Melanie had violated her tourist visa by working as a model during her stay.
Fast forward to 2017
On January 25, 2017, the POTUS signed an executive order to prioritize the deportation of a number of immigrants. This included individuals who were engaging in fraud or willfully misrepresentation their reason for being in the United States. If there had been an executive order to deport immigrants in the 90s – there is a very real chance that Melania would have been deported for violating her tourist visa.
Did Melania violate terms of tourist visa?
A reporter from Business Insider reached out to two immigration attorneys in order to learn more about whether or not Melania violating her tourist visa could have gotten her in trouble. While Donald Trump’s wife did obtain a work visa in October of 1996, the documents the Associated Press obtained suggests she was working as a model before she obtained a work visa.
This would have been a violation of her tourist visa – a visa which implied she was just her visiting and not working.
Both immigration attorneys confirmed Melania could have gotten in trouble at any point in the process of getting her work visa, getting her green card, or becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. In fact, not disclosing the fact that she violated her tourist visa when she applied for her work visa could have made her ineligible to get the work visa.
This would have, in turn, made her ineligible to get her green card and she likely never would have married Donald Trump.
Furthermore, it is even possible for the U.S. government to revoke Melania – or anyone else’s – citizenship if it were deemed they lied on the original paperwork. In this particular situation, the chances of that happening are unlikely given how small the case is.
It is possible Melania did inform the U.S. government of the violation through a waiver process and asked to be excused for the mistake she had made. Given the fact that her immigration records aren’t public, however, this isn’t something anyone would know for sure.
Do you think there is a chance Donald Trump’s wife could have been deported if the immigration laws he has in place would have been in place in the 1990s?
