Did Melania Trump have an H1-B visa or was she an illegal immigrant at one point? Those are the questions being posed by many news outlets today.
Over the weekend, several risqué pictures of Mrs. Trump were shared in the New York Post, and the publication revealed that they were taken in the United States in 1995. The date raised many questions – one of them being – has Trump been lying about her past immigration status?
In numerous interviews, the former model said that in 1996, she was in the country on a short-term visa, which implied that she was not allowed to work here legally. Earlier this year, she sat down with Mika Brzezinski, of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where she repeated over and over that she was never in the United States undocumented and never broke any immigration laws. Trump, who is now an American citizen, said:
“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.”
Immigration experts weighed in saying that there are many holes in Trump’s story that need to be clarified. The lawyer stated:
“An H-1B visa can be valid for three years and can be extended up to six years — sometimes longer — and would not require renewals in Europe every few months. If, as she has said, Trump came to New York in 1996 and obtained a green card in 2001, she likely would not have had to return to Europe even once to renew an H-1B.”
Melania Trump took to Twitter to share her side of the story. She tweeted:
“In recent days there has been a lot of inaccurate reporting and misinformation concerning my immigration status back in 1996,” she said in a statement. “Let me set the record straight: I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country. Period. Any allegation to the contrary is simply untrue. In July 2006, I proudly became a U.S. citizen. Over the past 20 years, I have been fortunate to live, work and raise a family in this great nation and I share my husband’s love for our country.”
