First Lady’s Parents Become U.S. Citizens Thanks To ‘Chain Migration’
By Scott Neuman
NPR (8/10/18)
First lady Melania Trump’s Slovenian-born parents were sworn in as U.S. citizens Thursday, benefiting from a path to citizenship known as family-based immigration that the president and others have derisively dubbed “chain migration.”
Viktor and Amalija Knavs, both in their 70s, attended a private swearing-in ceremony in Manhattan, according to their lawyer, Michael Wildes, who said the couple had “travailed a wonderful journey” to become Americans.
“This golden experiment, these doors that are in America, remain hinged open to beautiful people as they have today,” Wildes said after the ceremony, according to The Associated Press.
The lawyer acknowledged that the Knavses had obtained citizenship via the very pathway that their son-in-law, the president, has so publicly denounced. Wildes called chain migration a “dirtier” way of characterizing “a bedrock of our immigration process when it comes to family reunification,” according to The New York Times.
The AP writes that arriving at the ceremony, the Knavses “slipped in and out of a side entrance at a Manhattan federal building flanked by Department of Homeland Security police. Some workers inside didn’t know what was going on.”
Family-based immigration has been a frequent target of the president in his many tweets and speeches. …
- Melania’s Immigration Attorney Rips Trump For Stoking Fear Of Migrant Families — Melania Trump’s immigration attorney spoke up Friday to criticize the president’s “unconscionable” demonizing of “chain migration” to stoke fear of immigrants. Attorney Michael Wildes praised the “beautiful” U.S. program of family reunification that helped family members of both the first lady and Donald Trump settle in America. The first lady’s parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became American citizens Thursday thanks to to the program. Trump’s own grandfather, Friedrich Trump of Germany, and his Scottish-born mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, followed their siblings into this country. Melania Trump, from Slovenia, sponsored her parents so they could obtain a green card before applying for U.S. citizenship. Wildes said she has “great comfort” now knowing that her parents can stay in the U.S. … Read the Rest and 5-Minute Video
(Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2018. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )
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Since 2005, Ivanka’s Makeup & Hair Has Been Done By … A Mexican Immigrant!
By Walter Einenkel
The Daily Kos (8/10/18)
How does Ivanka Trump maintain such a glamorous look while her soul shrivels up like the Grinch’s? Mexican immigrant Alexa Rodulfo knows how—she’s been helping Ivanka do her face and hair since 2005! Refinery29 has the heartwarming story of Alexa Rodulfo. Rodulfo was born in Juárez, Mexico, and moved to the United States in 2005.
“Rodulfo tells Refinery29 that she started doing Trump’s hair and makeup in late 2005 after being introduced through a friend. “Ivanka and her friends were hosting the New York Botanical Garden gala that year and one of her friends was already a client of mine,” Rodulfo says. “She booked me to do the hair and the makeup for them, and that’s how we met. Since then, we have been working together.””
She’s a real “American Dream” success story. It’s too bad that she’s probably a drug dealer and a rapist, according to Ivanka’s boss and dad, Donald Trump. …
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Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Seeks Permission To Hire Foreign Workers For Posh Resort
By William Cummings
USA Today (7/6/18)
President Donald Trump often conveys a strong preference for American workers. But as a request from the president’s Mar-a-Lago golf club to hire 61 people from abroad demonstrates, putting that preference into practice can prove difficult.
The president’s Florida resort — which he has promoted as the “Southern White House” — filed requests with the Department of Labor to obtain 61 visas for foreign workers, according to Job Order records posted Thursday by the department’s Employment and Training Administration.
The Mar-a-Lago club asked for 40 H-2B visas for servers and another 21 for cooks. The H-2B visa is for “temporary non-agricultural workers.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the employer filing for H-2B visas must demonstrate that there are “not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available” …