When and how did Melania Trump obtain her initial US visa and what type was it?
Executive summary
Melania Trump first entered the United States in 1996 on a visitor visa (commonly described as a B‑1/B‑2), transitioned to one or more work visas later that year (her lawyers say an H‑1B effective October 1996), and then secured permanent residency through an EB‑1 “extraordinary ability” immigrant visa approved in 2001 before naturalizing in 2006 [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Arrival on a tourist visa — the documented starting point
Public reporting consistently places Melania Knauss’s first arrival in the U.S. in 1996 on a visitor visa, which allows entry for business or tourism but does not permit employment, and that status is the baseline for later scrutiny about work she did that year [1] [2] [4].
2. Transition to work status — H‑1B claims and disputes
The Trump team and Melania’s lawyer have said she began H‑1B status on October 18, 1996, and a modeling agent is reported to have sponsored an H‑1B for her that year, but independent reporting uncovered evidence that she was paid for modeling assignments between Sept. 10 and Oct. 15, 1996 — a period when her publicized visa would still have been a visitor visa — and some analysts say the record is incomplete because full immigration files have not been released [2] [5] [4] [6].
3. The EB‑1 immigrant petition — when, what, and why it matters
Melania applied for an employment‑based green card in 2000 and was approved under the EB‑1 “extraordinary ability” category in 2001, the immigrant classification sometimes nicknamed the “Einstein visa”; that category is for people who can demonstrate sustained national or international acclaim, and its use for a model aroused public controversy even as lawyers noted the category covers a wide range of fields beyond academia [1] [3].
4. How the EB‑1 was obtained — process, evidence gaps, and expert views
News outlets reported she petitioned in 2000 and received the EB‑1 in 2001, and commentators advised that successful EB‑1 petitions often rely on curated portfolios and strong testimonial letters — which her legal team declined to publish — so while legal experts said models can and do qualify, the absence of the actual application file leaves open which specific evidence convinced U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in her case [1] [3] [2].
5. Contention and consequences — why the timing and visa types matter politically and legally
The sequence — visitor entry in 1996, claimed H‑1B work authorization in October 1996, EB‑1 petition in 2000 approved in 2001, and later citizenship in 2006 — fuels debate because payments for work shown by records from September–October 1996 suggest activity before the asserted H‑1B start date, raising theoretical legal questions about unauthorized employment and retrospective exposure of immigration approvals to challenge, though no public agency action reversing her status has been reported and some attorneys stress that substantial legal advocacy and documentary strategy commonly carry EB‑1 cases [4] [5] [2] [3].
6. Unanswered questions and limits of the public record
Reporting across major outlets documents the broad timeline but also repeatedly flags a central limitation: the detailed immigration files and the exact materials submitted with the EB‑1 petition have not been released by Melania’s legal team or USCIS publicly, so while multiple reputable sources report the visitor‑to‑H‑1B‑to‑EB‑1 progression and the approval dates, the granular evidence that justified the EB‑1 approval — and the resolution of timing gaps around late 1996 work payments — remains undisclosed in the public record [1] [5] [3] [4].