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Amalija Knavs and Viktor Knavs, parents of Melania Trump, return to the White House from Bedminster, NJ on June 11, 2017. © Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
Melania Trump's mother immigrated to the United States through a process that Donald Trump vehemently opposes.
Washington, D.C. — Melania Trump, Donald Trump's wife, helped her mother immigrate to the United States through a family-based process that the former president aggressively sought to end, according to recently released federal immigration records.
The documents describe for the first time the entire journey of the former first lady's mother, Amalija Knavs, from Slovenia to the United States - and how the Trump administration's policies would have made that journey far more difficult for others. Knavs died in January at the age of 78.
Trump is the likely Republican candidate for the 2024 US election against Democratic President Biden. Trump's campaign team declined to comment through a spokeswoman.
US law is denounced by Trump as “chain migration”.
Melania Trump took advantage of a legal avenue that her husband and his top advisers had repeatedly denounced as “chain migration”: the right of U.S. citizens to bring their parents to the United States.
The 1965 federal law states that U.S. citizens can bring minor children and parents to the United States without having to wait long for a visa. Citizens can have siblings and adult children join them, but they usually have to wait longer for a visa.
During his presidency, Trump sponsored a bill called the RAISE Act that would have limited priority funding to spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and removed parents from the fast-track list.
“Democrats have been told and understand that there can be no DACA without the much-needed wall on the southern border and an end to terrible chain migration and the ridiculous immigration lottery system, etc.,” Trump tweeted on December 29, 2017. “We must protect our country at all costs!”
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Trump advocated introducing a Canadian-style points system to favor skilled workers, which may have also affected Knavs.
Immigration files blacked out in parts
In her 2009 immigrant visa application, Knavs stated that she graduated from high school in 1964 and attended fashion design school in Slovenia until 1966, although it was not specified whether she received a diploma. She married in 1967.
According to records, when Knavs applied for an immigrant visa, she spoke fluent Slovenian but was learning English.” Her citizenship application states that she retired in 1998.
Michael Wildes, Knavs' immigration attorney, declined to comment on her immigration file in a telephone interview, saying such records are typically confidential. The
Washington Post
requested the documents from the Department of Homeland Security after Knavs' death because privacy protections are weaker in this case.
The 165-page immigration filing released Monday (March 25) is heavily redacted in some parts, but it confirms that Knavs was sponsored for a green card by an adult child and lists the parent's financial sponsor as “Melania Trump.”
Melania Trump: Green Card because of “extraordinary skills” as a model
Wildes, a Democrat, praised family-based immigration as part of a long tradition in the United States and called Trump's criticism of that system "one of the stupidest statements of the day."
He said the Knavses were "looking forward to becoming citizens of this country" and that Melania Trump wanted to ensure her parents were "taken care of" and able to travel freely to the United States to care for the Trumps' son, Barron. take care of. Wildes said Melania Trump came to the United States from Slovenia in 1996 to work as a model and received a green card around 2001 because of her "extraordinary skills" as a model.
Records show that Knavs was a regular visitor to the United States after her daughter moved to this country and received permanent residency.
Former First Lady of the USA, Melania Trump, in 2019 (archive image). © IMAGO/Sammy Minkoff
Melania Trump married Donald Trump in 2005 and had a son the following year. She said she also became a citizen in 2006.
According to the documents, she applied for permanent residency, known as a green card, for her mother in 2008 and signed an affidavit the next year pledging to support her mother financially.
Knavs received permanent residency on March 16, 2010, one step ahead of U.S. citizenship. Green card holders can apply for U.S. citizenship after five years. However, records show Knavs waited longer. She applied for citizenship in August 2017, a few months after Trump took office and as he criticized “chain migration.”
In May 2018, Knavs appeared in New York for an interview and a naturalization test, which includes questions in English and a test on U.S. citizenship. She correctly answered questions such as the name of the US national anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) and the ocean on the west coast of the United States (Pacific).
She gave no answer to the question “What is the rule of law?”
Wildes said the family received no special treatment. The documents show that Knavs filled out an application for citizenship and answered questions about whether she was associated with the Communist Party (no) and whether she would bear arms in defense of the United States (yes). She paid the $725 application fee and said she was living in Trump Tower in New York at the time.
About the author
Maria Sacchetti
covers immigration, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the court system, for The Washington Post. She previously reported for the Boston Globe, where her work led to the release of several immigrants from prison. She lived in Latin America for several years and speaks Spanish fluently.
Knavs took the oath of citizenship alongside her husband Viktor - whose immigration records are not public - in New York on August 9, 2018, shortly after one of the worst debacles of Trump's presidency, when his administration sent parents of migrants to the southern border of separated from her children without having a plan to reunite them.
Melania Trump gained attention in June 2018 for visiting a children's home at the border wearing a green jacket that read, "I really don't care, do u?"
Wildes previously confirmed that Viktor and Amalija Knavs, as well as their other daughter Ines, who is Barron's godmother, came to the United States legally with Melania Trump's help, according to "The Art of Her Deal," a biography of Melania Trump by Post- Reporter Mary Jordan.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on March 26, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.