When Did Melania Come To The US? First Lady Must Explain Immigration Status, Says California Lawmaker

A California state lawmaker says the public has a right to know whether Melania Trump arrived in the U.S. legally given her husband's recent executive orders targeting illegal immigration. California state Sen. Nancy Skinner said Monday the White House must release immigration documents detailing the first lady's move to the U.S. from Slovenia in 1996.

"No one in the Trump operation has released any of the documentation to indicate what was the circumstance, or whether she had full legal status,'' Skinner told POLITICO. "We only know they had a lawyer look at whatever papers she chose to give."

Melania Trump married Donald Trump after she moved to New York City to work as a model with a visa that allowed her to look for jobs, but not obtain employment in the U.S. But an Associated Press investigation last year found she began working before she had legal permission to collect a paycheck.

Immigration attorney David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, declared Skinner’s demands "fair game." "It’s only appropriate they make his wife’s file public, so we know that his family also complied with immigration rules," he said.

But San Francisco attorney Harmeet Dhillon, a member of the Republican National Committee, called Skinner's demands "sexist and harassing,'' saying, “I don’t think that the president’s policy positions make his wife fair game for anything.” He added that an investigation into Melania Trump's immigration status would be “below the belt” and “a cheap trolling tactic" that is "really beneath the dignity of these California legislators.”

The Trump administration announced last week it would take steps toward building a U.S.-Mexico wall and blocking travelers from some nations in Africa and the Middle East from entering the U.S., regardless if they are permanent residents. Immigration officials later said the ban wouldn't apply to legal residents. Trump has also demanded cities turn in undocumented immigrants or risk losing federal funding. The order blocked all "federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement" to so-called sanctuary cities.

Melania Trump's immigration attorney told MSNBC over the weekend that Donald Trump's so-called "Muslim ban" was inappropriate. "How can we turn our backs on these individuals?" New York lawyer Michael Wildes said. "This is not the way you deal with people's lives."

Donald Trump said on the campaign trail in August that his wife would share more details about her immigration experience before Election Day, but that never happened.

Melania Trump has refused to move into the White House, opting instead to stay for now in the family's luxury penthouse in New York City so that her son, Barron Trump, can continue his schooling. She recently hired New York event planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff as a senior adviser to help oversee the first lady's duties.