'Deport Melania' campaign explained: Why anti-Trump camp is targeting First Lady, Barron amid immigration crackdown?

An increasing number of Americans are demanding that President Donald Trump’s own family be held to the same standards he advocates, as he intensifies calls for tougher immigration laws and the deportation of naturalized citizens. In an effort to highlight what critics describe as blatant hypocrisy in Trump's immigration rhetoric, a petition that went viral on MoveOn calls for the deportation of First Lady Melania Trump, her son Barron, and her father Viktor Knavs.

 

The petition, titled “Deport Melania, Melania’s Parents, and Barron in the First Round of Deportations”, has already garnered over 45,000 signatures. According to the Times of India, it urges that since Melania is a naturalised citizen, she and her family should be “on the first boat out” if Trump’s proposed policies are to be enforced impartially. Additionally, it refers to Barron as an ‘anchor baby’, highlighting the First Lady's immigration history and her late mother Amalija Knavs' citizenship.

 

Born in Slovenia in 1970, Melania Trump moved to New York in 1996 to pursue a modelling career. Ten years later, in 2006, she was granted U.S. citizenship, becoming the first First Lady to be naturalised and the second to be born outside of the country- facts acknowledged by the U.S. Embassy and reported by Hindustan Times. However, before she received her green card in 2001, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the specifics of her immigration status. According to the Financial Express, she obtained residency through the EB-1 program, also known as the ‘Einstein visa’, which is normally only granted to individuals with exceptional abilities. This information sparked considerable public debate.

 

Congresswoman Maxine Waters has been vocal in her critique. She stated that if Trump is genuinely concerned about undocumented immigration, he should "first look at Melania's records", during a rally in Los Angeles. According to Hindustan Times and Fox News, Waters questioned whether Melania’s parents were ever documented and said, “Maybe we better just take a look.”

 

The New York Times reported that Melania had sponsored her parents for green cards- a process facilitated through family-based immigration, or what Trump often disparagingly referred to as ‘chain migration’. While Amalija Knavs passed away in 2024, her husband, Viktor, still makes public appearances alongside the Trump family. This contradiction has been brought up by critics, who have cited Trump's outspoken criticism of the very procedure that allowed his in-laws to obtain legal residency.

 

Preventing the impression of double standards is one of the petition's main points, according to WION News. According to the petition, Melania must leave if this is truly a national security issue. It highlights that Trump's family should be scrutinised with the same rigour that he gives to immigrants, particularly given his alleged intentions to amend the 14th Amendment to restrict birthright citizenship- an executive order that is presently being challenged in court, according to NDTV.

 

With more than 3,000 people initially signing the petition and many more joining in as national media picked up the story, The Economic Times claims that the movement has brought about a great deal of national conversation. Activists are framing the call to deport Melania, Barron, and Viktor Knavs as a legitimate demand for equal application of immigration law, rather than merely as satire or protest.

 

 

What started as a scathing critique has become a powerful symbol of popular opposition as the Trump administration says nothing about it. It's unclear if the petition will actually have any impact, but it has undoubtedly sparked a larger discussion about who gets to belong and under what guidelines.

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