Politico: Melania may have committed visa fraud, illegally immigrated to US

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She's really been hurting his campaign, which was already experiencing turbulence before her exploits (i.e plagiarism, nude pictures, lesbianism).

I can't recall the last time a candidate's wife gave the candidate so much trouble. Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Ann Romney, Cindy McCain --- none of them aroused so much negative attention. In fact, most of them helped the candidate, especially Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain.

Poor girl did not know she would be a wife of a presidential candidate. Trump should have checked his wife immigration history before taking certain positions. In fact, his ignorance about immigration law is staggering for someone who has been hiring foreigners for a long time. I mean, all of us, foreigners legally in the US on all sorts of visas during the 1990s, would have smelled flesh if we bothered to check Melania's story.

The only way she was legal in 1995/6, if whatever agency she was modelling for was based out of the US and her pay cheque came from a non-US source. Pretty much anything else, combined with her story, suggests she broke the US immigration law.

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She put out a statement on Twitter:

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Where's her long-form immigration papers? Hillary needs to send her investigative team to Slovenia.

State department will be easily able to produce her visa history. By itself, there will not be much interesting there. The legal violation (of which, given her brains, she was probably innocently unaware), would be working for a US employer. So, whichever modelling agency paid her should be investigated.

[ag]

These stories about Melania are probably nothing more than sensationalist journalism.

Actually, given what has been produced so far, they are extremely plausible. Which visa she came into the US on? If it was a normal work H1-B or similar, all is clear. The visa, though non-immigrant, is double-intent - you do not have to be proving you are not planning to immigrate, everything is clean. Same with a few exotic visas for talented people. But none of those visas require regular travel back home. The visa that would require leaving the US every 6 months is B-1/B-2 (business/tourism). But that visa a) requires non-immigrant intent (she must have told the consul she is not planning to immigrate) and b) in almost all cases prohibits employment of any sort in the US. From her own testimony we know that she worked in the US as a model and that she regularly travelled out to maintain legality of her status. The very fact of such trips, combined with actual employment in the US, would constitute immigration fraud, even if she was not aware of it.

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I can easily see what happened. The poor stupid girl came to the US to work for a modelling agency. It was, probably, a small agency, not willing to go through the hoops of obtaining an H1-B authorisation. So, they just told her to get a US visa: any sort of a visa. She got a B1/B2 - what everybody gets to travel to the US for most reasons.  On entry to the US she was stamped 6 months entry and took it to mean that all she has to do is travel outside before those 6 months are over and then get another 6-month stamp. She did not pay attention to the prohibition on work, nor did she realise that by presenting herself at the border the second time she was implicitly testifying that she is not living or working in the US, obtaining her income from abroad. A pretty expensively dressed girl caused no problems at the border - the border officer smiled and, probably, thought she just has a rich boyfriend. The fraud was successful, but it was fraud.

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Once again, the questions were raised because of her own comment, that she traveled back to her home country every 6 months in order to be legal in the US. It is very difficult, if at all possible, to think up a situation where that could have been the case if she worked in the US in the meantime. If she was legally employed she, almost certainly, did not have to travel for immigration reasons. The only legal immigration-related reason for her to travel out would have been if she was in the US for non-work reasons, living from her savings and/or payments from her non-US employer. In that case, yes, having been admitted to the US for 6 months she could have traveled outside and returned for a new six-month period. If she was working in the US she would have been in violation of her status while in the US and commiting immigration fraud while re-entering the US.

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I mean, following US immigration law is much more likely to make it impossible to travel, not the other way around. There are many circumstances where during some transition in immigration status a person is stuck in the US, while waiting for the paperwork to go through (leaving the country would either require one to restart the process, or would force the applicant to wait for months outside the US, potentially losing the job in question, while staying in the US would have been perfectly legal). A student in a perfectly valid immigration status might face trouble getting a new visa stamp required to come back if s/he leaves the country. Getting a new visa stamp on a trip requires showing "non-immigrant intent" - something that is hard to do for a young guy who had spent the last few years studying in the US. It is much safer - and perfectly legal - to stay in the US for vacations.  I have seen cases of people missing their parents funerals because of such things. But I cannot think of a situation where traveling abroad regularly would have been required (at most, one has to travel abroad for a one-time visa status adjustment).  Mrs. Trump is having some interesting memories.

[ag]

But I cannot think of a situation where traveling abroad regularly would have been required (at most, one has to travel abroad for a one-time visa status adjustment).

Yeah I know of one person who had to leave the country for some visa issue.  They didn't have to go to freakin' Slovenia though.  They just had to poke their nose over the border and do whatever paperwork at a US Consulate "overseas".  I think they took a day trip by car up to Canada.  I've heard all kinds of tales of quirky visa issues and Rube Goldberg remedies but flying to Solovenia every six months is a new one for me... especially on this H1B visa Redban is swearing she had.  Who in their right mind would hire someone on an H1B visa that needed to go to Slovenia every six months?  I mean all the people I know who have H1B visas have graduate degrees and work in critical jobs that are woefully under supplied.  These employers can't just let these guys bolt every six months.

You do realize elite models travel all over the world for work, right? Paris, Milan, New York, etc. all have their own versions of fashion week.

Leaving the country is in their job description.

Your H1B visa analogy fails on that point alone. They are supposed to be mobile.

You do realize that US immigration law does not give a fig about such a job description? The main work visa in the US is called H-1B, and if processing it means you cannot do your job, US law has only one option for you: lose your job.

In any case, the giveaway here is not that she had to travel, but that she had to travel every six months. Pretty much the only common thing in US immigration practice that has 6 months in it, is the duration of time border agents normally stamp as the entry period for those on the B1/B2 (business/tourist) visa. Changing the B1/B2 status during those 6 month period to one allowing employment (or even extending the B1/B2 status beyond 6 months if there is a reason US law recognises as legitimate) does not require traveling outside the US.  "6 month" travel period has "employment prohibited" written all across it in large red letters, recognisable to all of us who had to deal with US visa/immigration system. She explicitly said she did it for immigration reasons: there are no legal immigration reasons she had to do it. That is what makes people in the know perk up.

I am pretty sure she remembered it correctly: she entered on, say, June 1, the stamp in her passport said "admitted till Nov. 30", so she left before it was up and thought she was all right. She was not. She, almost certainly, was not allowed to earn a living in the US, and doing that would automatically mean she was violating her immigration status. If this were discovered when she was reentering, she would have not been admitted, but sent back to Europe on the next plain. Most likely, she was coached by whoever was in charge of her to say that she is simply visiting: plausible for an obviously rich girl (a model does look "rich"). She may have thought it was just to make things simple and that as long as her admission stamp/migration form said she was ok with time it did not matter. But a lot of people have been deported/stuck many months in an immigration jail for much less.

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Oh yes -- the man who sponsored her for a work Visa and has extensive experience with professional modeling has "no knowledge of the situation."

She went there to take pictures that she could add to her portfolio, with no exchange of money. If you visit a country and have someone take your pictures as you stand in front of a landmark, then are you committing immigration fraud?

That's a very good point. So, by the same line of thinking, if a foreign photographer took pictures of say Yosemite and then sold them when they got back home, would that also be visa fraud? Seems a bit ridiculous if it would be classified as visa fraud.

No. What is prohibited is US employment. You can work in the US on B1 visa: for your foreign boss (there is an interesting extension: if you are a maid of a foreign boss who takes you with him to the US, you can work for him even while he is in the US on B1, but that has to be stated when you apply for the visa). What is not allowed is working for a US employer. So, if she was working for a foreign modelling agency, which sent her to NY to take some shoots with NYC views, she was fine. But if she was being paid by Americans, she was not.

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Oh yes -- the man who sponsored her for a work Visa and has extensive experience with professional modeling has "no knowledge of the situation."

She went there to take pictures that she could add to her portfolio, with no exchange of money. If you visit a country and have someone take your pictures as you stand in front of a landmark, then are you committing immigration fraud?

That's a very good point. So, by the same line of thinking, if a foreign photographer took pictures of say Yosemite and then sold them when they got back home, would that also be visa fraud? Seems a bit ridiculous if it would be classified as visa fraud.

No. What is prohibited is US employment. You can work in the US on B1 visa: for your foreign boss (there is an interesting extension: if you are a maid of a foreign boss who takes you with him to the US, you can work for him even while he is in the US on B1, but that has to be stated when you apply for the visa). What is not allowed is working for a US employer. So, if she was working for a foreign modelling agency, which sent her to NY to take some shoots with NYC views, she was fine. But if she was being paid by Americans, she was not.

The photographer who shot the 1995 pics already said that Melania received no compensation.

(See the last sentence in the link below)

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-modeling-agent-reveals-details-about-melania-trumps-visa/

If it  were only one shoot, perhaps, it would be enough But she lived in the US in an unclear status for quite a while. What was she living on? Was she selling something in Slovenia?

This is the rub: figuring out whether she was legally in the US requires figuring out what was the source of her income. She was, almost certainly, not allowed to earn money in the US. Where was she earning it and how?

BTW, US visa form also asks applicants to specify if they are coming in the US to practice prostitution (I am pretty certain a visa would not be granted if the answer is "yes"). I am not claiming anything about Mrs. Trump, but certain obvious things would, likewise, constitute visa fraud.

Ah, and, BTW, at the time there existed no provision in the US law allowing foreign brides to join their US grooms (or vice versa) before actual marriage (after marriage the spouse could be sponsored for a visa). Having a US boyfriend would have been considered relevant evidence of potential immigrant intent and would have likely, if revealed, resulted in visa denial. While this has been since changed, at the time there were thousands and thousands of such mixed couples living all along the US-Mexico border, because one of the partners was not allowed to enter the US, while the other was a US citizen working in the US. So, saying that she had a boyfriend who paid for her, if she did not reveal that in the consulate, would not absolve her of visa fraud. Let us hope that a rich foreign boyfriend (with a foreign source of income) can be found in this case

[ag]

Ah, and, BTW, at the time there existed no provision in the US law allowing foreign brides to join their US grooms (or vice versa) before actual marriage (after marriage the spouse could be sponsored for a visa). Having a US boyfriend would have been considered relevant evidence of potential immigrant intent and would have likely, if revealed, resulted in visa denial. While this has been since changed, at the time there were thousands and thousands of such mixed couples living all along the US-Mexico border, because one of the partners was not allowed to enter the US, while the other was a US citizen working in the US. So, saying that she had a boyfriend who paid for her, if she did not reveal that in the consulate, would not absolve her of visa fraud. Let us hope that a rich foreign boyfriend (with a foreign source of income) can be found in this case

OK? Are you suggesting that she, in 1995, had a boyfriend in America who paid for her livelihood? On what basis do you conjure this supposition? Where is your evidence?

No. I am suggesting that even that, were it true, would not be enough to claim she did not commit visa fraud. You need to find an income source from outside the US that allowed her to live in NY (or wherever she was). And that source cannot be a US boyfriend - unless she properly told this to the US consul in Ljubljana and he still issued her the visa.

So, you say she did not work in the US - fine. Suppose she had no US boyfriend - fine. But we do no she ate, and she did not sleep in the street. So, how did she pay for it, given that she was receiving no income from the US?

[ag]

This one to me is ehhhh...I wouldn't pursue it much. Pivot back to the economy and how Trump is a lying outsourcer, national security and how he is completely unfit to be president, and how terrifying it would be to give him the nukes. The issue doing the most damage to Trump right now is that he is a hypocrite on the economy and a complete psycho

No, this needs to be pursued to death. His own wife could be an illegal, and he obviously would have known. I can't see how his supporters could even justify that without calling for compassion and understanding for (one) undocumented immigrant.

The irony would be too delicious to pass this up. The cherry on top,  if you would. Time to file some FOIA requests and call Preet!

She's white so being an illegal immigrant wouldn't be a problem for Trumpers.

But I agree, pursue it hard and if she is illegal grab her and deport her during the campaign. Headline: "Hypocrite: Trump Harbors Illegal Immigrant".

She's a US citizen now.

So basically what you're saying that all illegal immigrants need to do is lie about it and get citizenship and then it's ok? New headline, "Trump supports path to citizenship for illegals if they lie about it".

Umm, no. I said nothing like that. You said she should be deported if she came here illegally, but she can't be deported because she's a US citizen. She might be guilty of a crime (in that scenario), but the statute of limitations has likely expired. It doesn't make it ok, but that's the reality.

Citizenship obtained by misrepresentation is invalid. Nazi criminals who spent 50 years as US citizens have been stripped of their citizenship and deported in the past.

In fact, she, probably, committed no crime. But she may have obtained citizenship by misrepresentation (which is not a crime, but a purely civil matter). Whether you consider that to be serious enough to go after the poor stupid girl, is another matter. But there may well be legal grounds to do so. And, I am sure, if she were not Melania Trump but Ghazala Khan, you would have happily gone after her.

[ag]

And, I am sure, if she were not Melania Trump but Ghazala Khan, you would have happily gone after her.

Umm, no. I've never said anything negative about the Khans nor anything positive about what Trump said about them. I'm not a Trump supporter in the slightest and my posting history backs that up. Doesn't mean his wife should be run out of the country. Maybe I'm wrong on the legality of the deportation. But your generalization is pretty offensive to me.

His wife should not be run out of the country. But Mr. Trump himself will have to explain why