{"id":236894,"date":"2016-08-05T07:03:36","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T07:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=236894"},"modified":"2016-08-05T07:03:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T07:03:36","slug":"melania-trump-denies-visa-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=236894","title":{"rendered":"Melania Trump denies visa claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Melania Trump, the wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has rejected suggestions that she violated visa rules when she started working as a model in New York.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement she said she had followed immigration laws &#8220;at all times&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Trump has yet to clarify what type of visa she used during a 1995 photo shoot in New York.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump has taken a hard line on illegal immigration in his campaign.<\/p>\n<p>So far, the Trump campaign has refused to say exactly which visas Mrs Trump had, and when she had them.<\/p>\n<p>The development comes during a turbulent week for the billionaire property developer.<\/p>\n<p>There are reports of deep divisions in the Republican Party after a series of controversial statements by the nominee.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Trump said she began working as a model in the US in 1996, but nude photos published at the weekend by a New York tabloid appear to have been taken in 1995 for a now defunct French magazine.<\/p>\n<p>BBC Washington correspondent Gary O&#8217;Donoghue says this discrepancy has raised questions about her immigration status at the time and whether she had the right to work.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/432D\/production\/_90679171_melsnip.png\" alt=\"Tweet\" width=\"577\" height=\"458\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>The owner of one modelling agency, Paolo Zampolli, says he sponsored Mrs Trump for an H1B work visa in 1996.<\/p>\n<p>She has said that she had to go back to her native Slovenia every few months to renew her permit &#8211; something that is only generally necessary for tourist and business visas that do not permit work.<\/p>\n<p>Our correspondent says the confusion has the potential to do significant damage to Mr Trump&#8217;s campaign, given his robust views on illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>He has also railed against the use of the H1B visa specifically, suggesting abuse of it is widespread and rampant.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump was formally adopted last month as the Republican candidate for November&#8217;s presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melania Trump, the wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has rejected suggestions that she violated visa rules when she started working as a model in New York. In a statement she said she had followed immigration laws &#8220;at all times&#8221;. Mrs Trump has yet to clarify what type of visa she used during a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}