Melania Petitions to Bring Her Family to Usa
Past Mary Jordan
Washington: In 2000, Melania Knauss, a Slovenian model dating Donald Trump, began petitioning the government for the right to live permanently in the United states of america under a program reserved for people with "extraordinary power".
Knauss' credentials included rail shows in Europe, a Camel cigarette billboard advertising in Times Square and - in her biggest task at the time - a spot in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured her on the beach in a string bikini, hugging a 1.8-metre inflatable whale.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. Credit:Bloomberg
In March 2001, she was granted a green menu in the aristocracy EB-one program, which was designed for renowned academic researchers, multinational business concern executives or those in other fields, such as Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actors, who demonstrated "sustained national and international acclaim".
"Nosotros chosen information technology the 'Einstein visa'," said Bruce Morrison, a sometime Autonomous congressman and chairman of the Business firm of Representatives subcommittee that wrote the Immigration Act of 1990 defining EB-ane.
The year that Knauss - now showtime lady Melania Trump - got her legal residency, simply 5 people from Slovenia received green cards under the EB-1 program, the State Department says.
In all, of the more than 1 meg light-green cards issued in 2001, only 3376 - or a fraction of one per cent - were issued to immigrants with "extraordinary power", according to government statistics.
Melania Trump'southward ability to secure her green carte not just gear up her on the path to US citizenship, but put her in the position to sponsor the legal residency of her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs. The Washington Post reported final month that the couple are now close to obtaining their own citizenship.
Viktor and Amalija Knavs, parents of Melania Trump. Credit:Washington Post
The Knavses are reportedly retired. In Slovenia, Viktor Knavs, at present 73, worked as a chauffeur and car salesman. Amalija Knavs, at present 71, was a pattern maker at a cloth factory.
President Donald Trump has proposed catastrophe the sponsorship of relatives such as parents, slamming every bit "chain migration" the decades-long power of The states citizens to assist relatives in obtaining legal residency.
"CHAIN MIGRATION must end now! Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. Not Acceptable!" Trump tweeted in November.
Michael Wildes, an attorney for Melania Trump and her family, declined to comment on whether she sponsored her parents for light-green cards. He said he was not surprised that so few immigrants from Slovenia obtained EB-1 green cards in 2001 because the criteria are stringent.
"Mrs Trump was more than than amply qualified and solidly eligible," he said. Merely he declined to discuss the qualifications that the first lady cited in her petition for permanent residency.
"There is no reason to adjudicate her petition publicly when her privacy is so important to her," Wildes said.
A White House spokeswoman for the offset lady referred questions about her clearing process to Wildes.
Immigration experts said the President's efforts to restrict legal clearing turn the spotlight on lingering questions virtually how the start lady and her family members obtained residency in the Us.
The biggest one: how did she convince immigration authorities that she qualified for the EB-i plan?
Morrison, the former congressman and immigration expert, said that Melania Trump'southward resume in 2001 seems "inconsistent" with the requirements of the visa.
To obtain an EB-1 under the extraordinary power category, an immigrant has to provide evidence of a major accolade or meet at to the lowest degree three out of 10 criteria. Amidst them: evidence of commercial successes in the performing arts, evidence of piece of work displayed at creative exhibitions and evidence of original contributions to a field.
"What did she submit?" asked David Leopold, an immigration lawyer and a by president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "At that place are a lot of questions about how she procured entry into the Usa."
The procedure of deciding who meets the "extraordinary ability" standard is subjective, said Sarah Pierce, an immigration expert at the Migration Policy Constitute, a Washington-based think tank. But it is generally thought that just the top ii per cent of people in their field would qualify, she said, adding that the "quintessential award you want to put on the application is 'Nobel Prize' ".
The first lady came to the United States from Slovenia in 1996, first briefly on a visitor'southward visa and so on work visas, Wildes said.
Initially, she was not widely known in the highly competitive New York fashion world, according to people in the industry.
"She was never a supermodel, she was a working model - similar and then many others in New York," said one person who knew her in the 1990s and requested anonymity to talk over the first lady's early years in the US.
In 1998, at the age of 28, she began dating Trump later meeting him at a party, an clan that raised her modelling profile. She started appearing in the New York Post's Page Six gossip department and in other celebrity columns on the arm of the real estate developer.
At the time, she was modelling on a work visa for skilled immigrants. Melania Trump received v H1-B visas betwixt October 1996 and 2001, Wildes has said.
Under her husband'southward administration, such temporary visas have been harder to get, dropping by more than than 50,000 in 2017 compared with the previous year, according to Us Citizenship and Clearing Services.
In January 2000, in mayhap her virtually widely known photo shoot, Melania Trump appeared on the embrace of British GQ mag. She was photographed nude on a fur rug on Donald Trump's individual jet under the headline, "Sex at thirty,000 feet. Melania Knauss earns her air miles." (The mag embrace is noted, among others, in her official biography on the White House website.)
The accompanying commodity predicted that the political aspirations of Trump - then making a bid for the Reform Party nomination - could transform his Slovenian girlfriend into the first lady of the Us one day.
"I will put all my effort into it," she told the magazine, "and I will support my human being."
The Washington Post
Source: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/how-did-melania-trump-get-a-green-card-on-the-einstein-visa-20180302-p4z2hq.html
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