This post was updated on August 31, 2017. It must be noted that all President Trump has needed to do to put this story to bed was to release the documents in question - work visas, green card, and the applications for both. They are sitting inside DHS/DOL and could be released within a coule of days. Trump originally committed to hold a press conference "in a couple of weeks" to address the issue on August 9th, 2016. The refusal to release them for more than a year now certainly suggests there are problems. For a more detailed set of questions about Melania's path be sure to check out this analysis.
The new AP story about Melania Trump's early days in the US proves she and her husband have been lying for years – on camera, in writing – about her immigration path into the United States. The key passage from the AP piece:
"The documents obtained by the AP show she was paid for 10 modeling assignments between Sept. 10 and Oct. 15, during a time when her visa allowed her generally to be in the U.S. and look for work but not perform paid work in the country. The documents examined by the AP indicate that the modeling assignments would have been outside the bounds of her visa."
Which means of course that the story she has been telling for years is a fable, an imaginary tale as false as the words she spoke at the Republican Convention.
For those interested in pursuing this story further several questions remain:
Work Visas – Trumpworld has never produced any documents or proven Melania ever had a work visa prior to her getting her green card in 2001. Her on camera descriptions of her returning to her home country to "get her visa stamped" every few months (here is an example from Morning Joe) does not describe any work visa offered by the US government. It suggests she was working in the US on a tourist visa - a common thing for many models to this day, but not legal. If Melania lied about her early, messy path into the US on her green card and citizenship applications she almost certainly committed felony level crimes and gamed the US immigration system to become first a legal resident then a citizen.
This Washington Post piece does a very good job at explaining why Melania's story about her early work in the US is hard to believe.
Green Card – Questions remain about how Melania recieved her green card. A Trump family lawyer said in an on camera interview with Univision that she received her green card through marriage. In the recent letter from her lawyer – which this new AP story now confirms was full of falsehoods – Melania claims, for the first time ever, to have received an “extraordinary ability” green card. Few experts believe this is possible given that she was never a terribly successful model. It remains my opinion that until we see her actual green card and application – we should assume she received her green card through marriage. It is the only option that makes sense as her own lawyers eliminated the other likely possibility - that she received it through employer sponsorship.
And imagine that Donald Trump's wife received a green card usually reserved for Nobel Laureates and he never once has bragged about it in public, nor did she ever mention it in an interview or include it in her bio. Perhaps the Turmps mentioned it at some point but there is no evidenc of this in any of the research we and others have done.
Lying – Remember that the questions about Melania's immigration path began when the Trump campaign admitted that she had lied for years about having a dual degree from a college in her home country. Turns outs she completed less than a year of college. The embellishment was significant - not only did she go to college but had 2 degrees! - and the lie was maintained for years. It suggests of course that this embellishment/lie was critical to her getting either her work visas or green card, and thus the fiction had to be maintained long past when it was necessary.
As we discussed earlier, all of this matters for lying about her degree or her early work history on her work visa, green card and citizenship applications is immigration fraud, a felony level crime. If was wasn't the First Lady, and DHS fully investigated and prosecuted the case the penalties could include the stripping of her citizenship. The AP story also raises new questions about whether Mrs. Trump also committed tax fraud, a new area requiring exploration in coming days.
It should be noted that being in the United States without authorization – undocumented/illegal – is not a federal crime in the United States. So this means that what Melania likely did was far worse in the eyes of the law than anything a run of the mill undocumented immigrant has done. It is as if there is one set of rules for the Trumps, and one for everyone else.
The Bottom Line – For months the story that has been told about Melania’s path into the United States never really added up. We also now know that the letter her lawyer produced to try to put this thing to bed, which seemed far-fetched and almost ridiculous at the time, cannot any longer be taken seriously. Melania Trump broke American immigration laws. She worked illegally in the United States. She has lied about it for years, as has her husband. And until she produces her works visas and green card, and their applications, we should assume she has also committed serious felony level crimes against the United States.
An additional must read is Julie Ioffe's remarkable GQ article on Melania and her early path. The compelling piece generated venemous anti-Semitic attacks against Ioffe, which Mrs.Trump praised.
Also be sure to review this powerful Mother Jones piece on Trump's modeling agency exploition of its young models.
CA State Senator Nancy Skinner has demanded Pres Trump release Melania's immigration file. We at NDN humbly call on others to join her.