Donald Trump has waged a war against immigrants since he was elected. His rhetoric has ranged from Mexican “rapists” to America wants immigrants as long they do it “legally”. Through all the rhetoric there are the inconvenient facts with Donald Trump’s own family’s immigration history.
It starts with Donald Trump’s own grandfather who not only committed immigration fraud to come to the United States but was also stripped of his German citizenship for avoiding the legal obligation to serve in the military. Trump’s own mother was also an immigrant.
Trump’s current wife, Melania Trump, is also an immigrant. Melania, like Trump supporters, argue that immigrants are welcomed as long as they “immigrate legally.” This, in-spite of questions, about Melania Trump’s own immigration story.
But Melania, is not Trump’s first immigrant wife. Ivana Trump is also an immigrant. Ivana and Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka recently told the news media she has empathy for immigrants because her mother is an immigrant who “came to the country legally.”
Yet, that’s not exactly true.
In a Washington Post from February 22, 1990 about Donald Trump’s divorce from Ivana, the story of Ivana’s first marriage shows us that Ivana committed immigration fraud. According to the article by Chuck Conconi, Ivana married “for the ‘sole purpose’ of arranging her emigration from Czechoslovakia.”
Michael Kennedy, Ivana’s attorney in the divorce, is quoted as stating that Ivana married Alfred Winklmayr in November 1971 in Prague. According to Kennedy, the “Cold War marriage” was “never consummated” and the couple never lived together. According to the article, Ivana received her Austrian passport on March 1972, as the result of the fraudulent marriage to Winklmayr. Ivana immigrated to Canada later that year. After the “mandatory” waiting period, the marriage between Ivana and Alfred was “dissolved” in August 1973.
Ivana married Donald Trump in 1977.
Ivana Trump committed marriage fraud for immigration purposes by marrying Alfred Winklmayr to leave Czechoslovakia.
For Ivanka Trump to argue that her mother “legally” immigrated to America is an outright lie because without the fraudulent Austrian passport, Ivana would not have been in Canada to meet Donald Trump and marry him.
