Melania Trump Scandal: Report Claims Melania Worked In Violation Of Her Immigration Status When First Coming To The United States

Melania Trump is caught up in a new scandal with a bombshell report claiming that she worked in the United States illegally in the early days of her modeling work.

The report came late on Friday from The Associated Press, which found that Melania worked 10 modeling jobs for a total of $20,056 in a seven-week period before she had legal permission to work in the United States. The allegations appear to confirm earlier reports that Melania Trump lived for at least some time outside the bounds of her visitor visa.

“The wife of the GOP presidential nominee, who sometimes worked as a model under just her first name, has said through an attorney that she first came to the U.S. from Slovenia on Aug. 27, 1996, on a B1/B2 visitor visa and then obtained an H-1B work visa on Oct. 18, 1996,” the report noted.

The AP scoop on #MelaniaTrump isn't about what she did as a young woman but about her husband's hypocrisy & bigotry https://t.co/kD1NXtksYo

— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) November 5, 2016

“The documents obtained by the AP show she was paid for 10 modeling assignments between Sept. 10 and Oct. 15, during a time when her visa allowed her generally to be in the U.S. and look for work but not perform paid work in the country. The documents examined by the AP indicate that the modeling assignments would have been outside the bounds of her visa.”

The report claimed that the discovery would be unlikely to affect Melania Trump’s citizenship status, but that it could be a major hit to a candidate who has made cracking down on illegal immigration a cornerstone of his campaign. Trump has taken a hard line against illegal immigration, even while critics noted that those living in the United States illegally most often come in hopes of making a better life for their families. The revelation that his own wife may have at one point been an illegal immigrant would show hypocrisy on Trump’s part, critics claimed.

Melania Trump earned over $20K modeling illegally before getting her work visa. https://t.co/hejBz9cs4K pic.twitter.com/QJs5UDxgpJ

— Complex (@Complex) November 5, 2016

This is now the second time that Melania Trump has been caught up in a very public scandal during her husband’s campaign. Back in July, she was criticized when it turned out the speech she delivered at the Republican National Convention was found to have plagiarized one given by Michelle Obama in 2008.

Trump’s camp initially denied that Melania Trump’s speech was plagiarized, with then-campaign chair Paul Manafort telling CNN that the allegations were “absurd.”

“There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values. She cares about her family,” Manafort said. “To think that she’d be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.”

But the campaign changed course just a day later, admitting that the speech was accidentally plagiarized by someone who helped Melania Trump with the writing.

And on top of that, the speech had what appeared to be a reference to the Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

“If you want someone to fight for your country, I assure you, he is your guy,” Melania said. “He will never give up. And most importantly, he will never let you down.”

The song had become a viral joke across the internet through the phenomena known as Rickrolling, where someone would disguise a hyperlink that appeared to point somewhere else but actually directed the viewer to the “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video.

Melania Trump has also endured a numbers of scandals hitting her husband related to his treatment of women. There was the release of a 2005 video from Access Hollywood in which Trump appeared to brag about sexually assaulting women, followed by more than a dozen women who came forward to claim he behaved in a sexually inappropriate way.

The latest revelation claims that Donald Trump carried on a months-long affair with former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, who sold her story to American Media. The Wall Street Journal detailed the alleged affair, claiming that American Media purposely spiked the story in order to protest Donald Trump.

If is not clear if Melania Trump could face any legal consequences from the revelation that she may have lived and worked in the United States illegally, but the harm to Trump’s campaign could be much larger in the days before Election Day.

[Featured Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]