Documents Reveal Melania Worked Illegally in US

Unwelcome news for the Trump campaign days ahead of the election: According to documents unearthed by the AP, Melania Trump worked illegally in the US for a few weeks in 1996, earning $20,056 for 10 modelling jobs. According to the documents, which the AP says it has been seeking since questions about Melania's immigration status surfaced in August, modeling firm Metropolitan International Management paid her for assignments between Aug. 27, 1996, when she arrived from Slovenia on a B1/B2 visitor visa—which allowed her to seek employment but not to perform paid work—and Oct. 18, 1996, when she obtained her H-1B work visa.

The AP says the documents were authenticated by a former employee at the modeling firm, who wishes to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from the Trump campaign. In a rare campaign speech Thursday, Melania said that "as a young entrepreneur, I wanted to follow my dream to a place where freedom and opportunity were in abundance," USA Today notes. She received her green card in 2001 and became a US citizen in 2006, the year after she married Donald Trump. Her alleged breaking of immigration laws could, in theory, affect her citizenship status if she is found to have lied to authorities, though the AP notes that the government only tends to revoke citizenship in extreme cases involving terrorism or war crimes. (More Melania Trump stories.)