Melania Trump released a letter from her immigration attorney Wednesday aimed at settling questions about whether she properly followed immigration law when she came to the United States in 1996.
“I am pleased to enclose a letter from my immigration attorney which states that, with 100% certainty, I correctly went through the legal process when arriving in the USA,” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter, with a photo of the attorney’s letter attached.
Michael J. Wildes, Trump’s lawyer who signed the letter from the firm Wildes & Weinberg, wrote, “It has been suggested by various media outlets that in 1995, Mrs. Trump illegally worked as a model in the United States while on a visitor visa. Following a review of her relevant immigration paperwork, I can unequivocally state that these allegations are not supported by the record, and are therefore completely without merit.”
“Contrary to published reports, Mrs. Trump never worked in the United States in 1995 because she was never in the United States in 1995,” Wildes wrote, citing immigration documents that demonstrate that Trump’s first entry to the country was in 1996.
The controversy over Trump’s immigration history began in August when the New York Post re-published photos from an old photoshoot she had done in the 1990s, which seemed to place her in New York City in 1995, despite her claims that she had arrived in 1996. Critics questioned the timeline Trump had provided for her immigration history and whether she had obtained proper legal status.