The parents of the first lady, Melania Trump, have obtained lawful permanent residency in the United States, a lawyer for the couple confirmed on Wednesday, but it remains unclear how or when the couple received their green cards, New York Times reported.
The lack of clarity about when and how Viktor and Amalija Knavs obtained their legal residencies raises questions about whether the couple secured their residency through family-based immigration, which President Donald Trump calls chain migration and has said he wants to restrict.
Immigration experts told New York Times, it would have been the most direct, and most likely, way for the first lady’s parents, formerly of Slovenia, to get their green cards.
Their immigration lawyer, Michael J Wildes, declined to offer any details. “It’s a privilege to help this family, but I have to respect their privacy as well,” Wildes told New York Times in a brief interview.
“Immigration is in our DNA,” he added. “We have to take great pride, no matter where somebody hails from, in that legacy.”
Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Melenia, wrote in an email that she would not comment on first lady’s parents because “they are not part of this administration, and deserve their privacy.”
The Washington Post first reported the Knavses’ immigration status.
Under family-based immigration, adult US citizens can petition for residency for their parents, adult married children and siblings. Melania would limit that to parents and children under 21.
In the Knavses’ case, Melania, who became a citizen in 2006 after obtaining a green card, would have sponsored them.
“It would be odd if she sponsored her parents and didn’t want to talk about that because it’s a fairly routine thing,” Hiroshi Motomura told New York Times, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in immigration law. “It only becomes sensitive if her husband is taking a position against this.”
Both of Melania’s parents have been seen at White House events, celebrated Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago, first lady’s Florida estate, and reportedly spend much of their time with the Trump family. Questions about their immigration status were raised in recent months as the administration emphasized stricter immigration reform.
The US president has vilified the program as a way for terrorists to enter the United States and has called for aspects of the program to be eliminated as part of immigration reform.
“CHAIN MIGRATION must end now!” Trump wrote on Twitter in November. “Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE!”
About seven million of the 11 million immigrants who obtained green cards between 2007 and 2016 did so through familial relations, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.