Historical revisionism aside, Melania Trump was no supermodel. Yet in 2001 she got a green card through a program for people designated as having “extraordinary ability.”
“We called it the Einstein visa,” said Bruce Morrison, a former Democratic congressman and chairman of the House subcommittee that wrote the Immigration Act of 1990 defining EB-1.
The year that Knauss — now first lady Melania Trump — got her legal residency, only five people from Slovenia received green cards under the EB-1 program, according to the State Department.
In all, of the more than one million green cards issued in 2001, just 3,376 — or a fraction of one percent — were issued to immigrants with “extraordinary ability,” according to government statistics. [...]
To obtain an EB-1 under the extraordinary ability category, an immigrant has to provide evidence of a major award or meet at least three out of 10 criteria. Among them: evidence of commercial successes in the performing arts, evidence of work displayed at artistic exhibitions and evidence of original contributions to a field.
Hmmm. The Washington Post cites one immigration expert who says that in general a person would have to be in the top two percent of their field to get the EB-1. Among models, that might at different points in time have meant Gisele Bundchen or Naomi Campbell or Doutzen Kroes. Not Melania Knauss, even after her career got a boost from dating Donald Trump.
There’s no doubt she benefited from a very good immigration lawyer, but the idea of a pre-Donald Melania Knauss—or a model with her post-Donald career but lacking the wealthy boyfriend—getting the “Einstein visa” on the basis of her career as a model strains plausibility. And, of course, once she had her green card, the parents of the woman now married to a man who regularly rants against “chain migration” came over and are now close to citizenship.
It’s just very curious, is all.