How Melania managed to get an ‘Einstein’ visa despite no editorial modeling still remains a mystery, says book
While there has been an increased public demand over the years to reveal the truth behind Melania Trump's immigration journey, neither Melania nor any other members of the Trump administration have shown any real interest in doing so, a new book about the first lady reveals.
Mary Jordan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post political reporter has highlighted in her book 'The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump' the hypocrisy inherent in Trump’s hardline immigration policies which have led to a dramatic reduction in the number of people coming over from other countries to the United States, especially since his wife was only the second first lady in history to have been born outside the US.
In 2018, the number of immigrants had dropped 70 percent from the previous year.
In August 2016, Trump’s presidential campaign promised to hold a press conference to clarify how Melania obtained the so-called 'Einstein visa' in 2001. However, the press conference never took place after the business mogul was elected into the Oval Office. “They said my wife Melania might have come in illegally,” Trump said during a campaign rally in North Carolina in 2016. “Can you believe that one?”
Since the White House has also never officially released Melania's immigration records, Jordan spoke to attorney Michael Wildes, who has been designated by the Trumps to address questions about Melania’s immigration. Wildes, who did not personally handle the FLOTUS' immigration process, said Melania Knauss arrived in New York City in August 1996 to pursue a career in modeling. While she came to the US on a visitor's visa arranged by an Italian modeling agent, she secured an H-1B work visa two months later. The H-1B is normally reserved for “distinguished merit or ability”. After that, she obtained five H-1B visas over the next five years.
The 'Einstein visa' was obtained through the “elite” EB-1 program — a privilege that was extended to just one percent non-US citizens in 2001, and only to those who possessed 'extraordinary ability'. Hence, among the recipients of the visa were academics, multinational business executives, Olympic athletes, and Oscar-winning actors. Jordan said that it was immediately clear what “extraordinary ability" regarding her modeling talent Melania filed on the green card application as she never scaled the peak of “editorial” modeling which includes booking gigs for highly reputed fashion magazines. By 2000, Melania’s modeling portfolio included an ad for Camel cigarettes which made her picture go up on a billboard in Times Square and a photo in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.
When Jordan asked, "But did that add up to extraordinary ability?” Wildes replied, “There is no reason to adjudicate her petition publicly when her privacy is so important to her." Melania became an American citizen in 2006, and still kept her Slovenian citizenship. She also ensured that her son Barron was also a dual citizen. The mother-son duo renewed their Slovenian passports after moving into the White House despite the fact that it was “very unusual for members of the first family to be citizens of another country”.
Jordan also noted the irony of the fact that Trump’s Slovenian-born in-laws, Viktor and Amalija Knauss, were celebrating their naturalization ceremony at the federal building in Manhattan, just days after the POTUS rallied against “chain migration” on August 4, 2018. “And how about chain migration? How about that?” the president said, to which a crowd of his supporters booed.
Wildes told Jordan that Trump did not pull any strings to help in the immigration of Melania's parents and that she began working with an immigration lawyer in 2006 to begin the process of “chain migration” for both her parents and her sister. “She (Melania) works at remaining mysterious,” Jordan writes. “In her own way, she is as complex and complicated as her husband. She is also much more like him than it appears...Both are avid creators of their own history.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is considering the temporary suspension of the H-1B visa — the same one which provided a route for Melania to enter the United States. Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was considering the suspension of a number of work visas, including the H-1B in the light of massive unemployment in America due to coronavirus pandemic. The proposed suspension — which might also include the H-2B visa for short-term seasonal workers, the J-1 visa for short-term workers, and the L-1 visa for internal company transfers — could extend into the government's new fiscal year beginning October 1, when many new visas are issued.
"The administration is currently evaluating a wide range of options, formulated by career experts, to protect American workers and job seekers especially disadvantaged and underserved citizens — but no decisions of any kind have been made," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement.