As President Donald Trump ramped up efforts targeting undocumented immigrants and naturalized citizens, a viral petition has turned the spotlight onto his own family, calling for their deportation. The petition, hosted on MoveOn.org and titled “Deport Melania, Her Parents, and Barron in the First Round of Deportations,” has gathered nearly 3,000 signatures. It demands that First Lady Melania Trump, her parents, and her son Barron be among the first deported under the immigration policies championed by Trump himself.
“If President Trump is serious about targeting naturalised citizens and families of immigrants, then his own family should be held to the same standard,” the petition reads. It argues that applying the proposed immigration rules fairly should begin with the First Family, stating, “There should be no exceptions.”
The petition singles out Melania Trump’s background, noting that she was born in Slovenia and moved to the United States in 1996 to pursue modeling. She obtained a green card in 2001 through the EB-1 program often referred to as the “Einstein visa” for individuals with extraordinary abilities and became a U.S. citizen in 2006, one year after marrying Donald Trump.
Her parents, Amalija and Viktor Knavs, also immigrated from Slovenia and became U.S. citizens through family-based immigration, a process Trump has repeatedly criticised as “chain migration.” Their path to citizenship has drawn scrutiny in light of the president’s opposition to that very policy.
Critics have long questioned whether Melania maintained valid legal status during her early modeling years in the U.S., though she and the White House have denied any wrongdoing. The petition references those questions and uses them as a springboard to call for her deportation under the same standards applied to others.
“Melania’s ‘anchor baby,’ Barron, should be forced to leave as well because his maternal grandparents were born abroad,” the petition adds, a clear jab at the language and rationale often used in anti-immigration rhetoric.
Public figures have echoed similar concerns. In a 2018 rally, Congresswoman Maxine Waters questioned the documentation status of Melania Trump’s parents, suggesting that if the administration was committed to thoroughly vetting immigrants and their families, the First Lady should not be immune.
Melania Trump is the second First Lady in U.S. history to be born outside the country and the first to become a naturalised citizen. While her immigration journey was legal, the petition’s authors argue that if Trump’s policies target others with similar backgrounds, fairness demands that his own family face the same scrutiny.