Maslenjak & The First Lady

Slate is talking about the SCOTUS case Maslenjak. (Look here, here, here, and here for our prior coverage of the case. It’s about what should be able to trigger denaturalization. The government wants broad powers in this realm – oral argument suggests that the justices aren’t on the same wavelength.)

They’ve got an interesting take: Might the case impact First Lady Melania Trump’s own naturalization? Here’s the argument:

In 2016, a lawyer representing Melania—a native of Slovenia who was naturalized in 2006—attested that he had reviewed her immigration documents and found no evidence that she had ever violated U.S. law. Later that year, however, the Associated Press uncovered records showing that she had in fact done paid modeling work for several weeks while she was staying in the U.S. in 1996 on a visitor visa, which would have been a violation of that visa’s terms. If, as her lawyer’s statement would appear to imply, Melania did not subsequently disclose this violation on other immigration documents, the Trump administration’s current position would thus suggest she—the First Lady of the United States—is subject to deportation.

-KitJ