Gaps
in Melania Trump’s immigration story raise questions
A
racy photo shoot is prompting fresh scrutiny of the would-be first
lady’s early visits to the United States.
By
Ben Schreckinger
and
Gabriel Debenedetti
8/4/16, 3:41 PM CET
Nude photographs
published this week are raising fresh questions about the accuracy of
a key aspect of Melania Trump’s biography: her immigration status
when she first came to the United States to work as a model.
The racy photos of
the would-be first lady, published in the New York Post on Sunday and
Monday, inadvertently highlight inconsistencies in the various
accounts she has provided over the years. And, immigration experts
say, there’s even a slim chance that any years-old
misrepresentations to immigration authorities could pose legal
problems for her today.
While Trump and her
husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, have said she
came to the United States legally, her own statements suggest she
first came to the country on a short-term visa that would not have
authorized her to work as a model. Trump has also said she came to
New York in 1996, but the nude photo shoot places her in the United
States in 1995, as does a biography published in February by
Slovenian journalists.
The inconsistencies
come on top of reports by CBS News and GQ Magazine that the former
model falsely claimed to have obtained a college degree in Slovenia,
but could be more politically damaging because her husband has made
opposition to illegal immigration the foundation of his presidential
run.
“It never
crossed my mind to stay here without papers” — Melania Trump
Representatives of
the Trump campaign and the Trump Organization did not address
detailed questions about the timing and circumstances of Melania
Trump’s arrival in the country, but campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks
responded to the emailed questions by stating, “Melania followed
all applicable laws and is now a proud citizen of the United States.”
Trump’s own
statements suggest otherwise, immigration experts say.
In a January profile
in Harper’s 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 MSNBC’s “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.”
“I mentioned
that she’d come to New York on that H-1B visa, and she nodded in
agreement” — Mickey Rapkin, writer
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 she’d come to
New York on that H-1B visa, and she nodded in agreement,” Rapkin
wrote in an email to POLITICO.
Trump’s tale of
returning to Europe for periodic visa renewals is inconsistent with
her holding an H-1B visa at all times she was living in New York —
even if it was the lesser-known H-1B visa specifically designed for
models — said multiple immigration attorneys and experts. 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.
Instead, Trump’s
description of her periodic renewals in Europe are more consistent
with someone traveling on a B-1 Temporary Business Visitor or B-2
Tourist Visa, which typically last only up to six months and do not
permit employment.
Trump's hardline
policy on immigration: a hit with many voters
Trump’s hardline
policy on immigration: a hit with many voters | Daniel
Kritschoff/Getty Images
If someone were to
enter the United States on one of those visas with the intention of
working, it could constitute visa fraud, according to Andrew
Greenfield, a partner at the Washington office of Fragomen, Del Rey,
Bernsen & Loewy, a firm that specializes in immigration law.
“It’s
quintessential,” he said. “If you enter the United States with
the intention of working without authorization and you present
yourself to a border agent at an airport or a seaport or a manned
border and request a visa, even if there is not a Q&A — knowing
that you are coming to work — you are implicitly, if not
explicitly, manifesting that you intend to comply with the parameters
of the visa classification for which you sought entry and were
granted entry.”
“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 can’t 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 Trump’s 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.
The timing of
Melania Trump’s arrival in New York remains hazy, and
representatives of the Trump campaign and Trump Organization did not
address questions about that timing. In a previously unpublished
portion of an April interview conducted for a profile in GQ, Trump
told POLITICO’s Julia Ioffe that she lived with Matthew Atanian,
her first known roommate in New York, only for a few weeks. “I was
busy and I was traveling a lot. And then after that, after a month of
two, I found my own place,” Trump said.
But in an interview
for the same profile, Atanian told Ioffe that they shared the
apartment for a period that spanned 1995 to 1996 and Atanian told
POLITICO this week that he and Trump shared the apartment for a total
of a year to a year-and-a-half. He said he recalled Trump leaving the
country to travel home for holidays during that period.
Trump has said she
came to New York in 1996, but multiple reports indicate she first
started doing work there in 1995. Her personal website was taken down
last month in the wake of reports that its biography section falsely
credited her with earning a college degree. (Trump tweeted that the
website was taken down “because it does not accurately reflect my
current business and professional interests.”) An archived snapshot
of that bio page describes Trump as “settling in New York in 1996”
and she told Brezinski in January, “I came to New York 1996.”
But according to
“Melania Trump: The Inside Story” a biography published in
February by two Slovenian authors — journalist Bojan Požar and
publicist Igor Omerza — Trump “began moving to New York in 1995.”
The book also states that Trump first met a close friend, the model
Edit Molnar, “in New York in the middle of 1995.”
“In 1995 she
started coming to the USA according to the jobs she was getting at
fashion agencies,” wrote Požar in an email to POLITICO. “We
don’t know the exact dates of those before she officially settled
in New York but her visits prior to that were temporary business
opportunities that she had as a model.” Požar said he learned of
these first jobs in America from two fashion agents, one in Italy and
the other in Vienna, and that such trips abroad were common for
Eastern European models, but not “technically” legal.
Požar’s timing is
consistent with the New York Post’s report. The nude photos were
taken in New York in 1995 for the January 1996 issue of France’s
now-defunct Max Magazine, according to the tabloid.
Alé de Basseville,
the photographer who shot the photos, told POLITICO that the shoot
took place in a private studio near Manhattan’s Union Square. He
declined to name the owner of the studio and said that he encountered
Trump through Metropolitan Models, a Paris-based agency with a New
York office that was then representing Trump.
To carry out the
1995 New York photo shoot legally, Trump would have required a
working visa, likely an H-1B, even if she were not yet living in the
United States, as her native Slovenia was not part of the State
Department’s visa waiver program until 1997.
“I will end
forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute
an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa
and immigration program. No exceptions” — Donald Trump
Paolo Zampolli, an
Italian businessman who was then a partner in Metropolitan and is
credited with sponsoring Trump’s entry into the United States and
introducing her to her future husband, said that he did not recall
that particular shoot or the exact timing of Trump’s first arrival
in New York.
Zampolli said the
models he worked with would have entered the country on either an
H-1B or an O-1, a visa for foreigners who possess “extraordinary
ability.” O-1 visas are frequently given to star scientists,
athletes and entertainers, but because Melania Knauss (her maiden
name) was an obscure model who mostly posed for advertisements and
catalogs in the mid-’90s, it is highly unlikely she qualified for
an O-1, which comes with an initial stay period of up to three years,
said immigration attorneys. An O-1 visa would also not have required
her to leave the country periodically.
Zampolli said he
first met Trump in Milan and that models he worked for moved across
international borders legally. “Every model we represented, we did
a visa,” he said. “It’s just part of the rules.”
Even Melania’s use
of the H-1B program would stand in contrast to her husband’s
position today. Trump, who has made his opposition to illegal
immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, has also vowed to crack
down on the use of H1-B visas as president. In March, he said he
would “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program,
and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first
for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.”
Julia Ioffe
contributed to this report.
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