Melania Trump modeled in America without a work visa

(Image credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images)

Donald Trump's wife Melania earned $20,056 modeling in America before she obtained a work visa, documents from her earliest years in the United States indicate.

Then known as Melania Knauss, Trump first came to the States from her native Slovenia on Aug. 27, 1996, under a visa that permitted her to look for work but not to accept any paid position. She acquired an H-1B work visa on Oct. 18, 1996, but in the month and a half between those dates, she worked 10 paid modeling gigs for employers including Fitness Magazine and Bergdorf Goodman.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.