Melania Trump’s Orthodox immigration lawyer speaks out against ban

NEW YORK — So far Attorney Michael Wildes has escaped President Donald Trump’s wrath.

An immigration lawyer, Wildes is speaking out against Trump’s January 27 executive order that banned immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim majority nations. While Wildes is certainly not the only one to oppose the president’s order, he isn’t just any immigration lawyer: He represents First Lady Melania Trump in immigration matters.

“She was very respectful and understood my position. She is not only First Lady; she is a lady of the first order. I think America is going to come to appreciate her,” said the 52-year-old lawyer in a telephone interview with The Times of Israel.

“I liken her to Queen Esther; she has the ear of the president. She is an immigrant herself,” said Wildes.

Even so, Wildes, who is conservative Democrat, said he couldn’t remain silent in good conscience.

‘As people of the passport we have to stand with our Muslim cousins’

“I feel the president is a patriot but I just wish the [language of the] order was more restrictive, that it had excluded green card holders, those with permanent residency,” Wildes said. “As Americans, we can’t afford to close our doors as our economy tries to right itself. As people of the passport we have to stand with our Muslim cousins. America is a magnet for the best of the best and we cannot create a policy that responds to fear.”

Implementation of the January 27 executive order was recently put on hold after a stay ordered by the judge in Washington v. Trump. The Trump Administration appealed but on Thursday a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to uphold suspension of the ban.

A managing partner at Wildes and Weinberg Law Office in New York City, Wildes focuses solely on immigration. The firm, founded by his father Leon Wildes, represents Trump Models, President Trump’s NY modeling agency and secures visas for models in the Miss Universe pageants. The first also helps students, business people, and physicians navigate US immigration laws.

When Wildes heard about the order he said he “was concerned.”

“I had one client, an Iranian doctor who treats children, who was doing cancer surgery in Italy. He couldn’t get back. I had another client, a brain surgeon from Sudan who couldn’t get to JFK to meet his parents who were flying in,” said Wildes.

In those widely reported moments of chaos, there were also overlooked moments of compassion on the part of federal employees, said Wildes.

For example, Wildes’ Sudanese brain surgeon client said he wasn’t able to make it to the airport to greet his parents, who are permanent residents. He was nervous and asked Wildes to send lawyers to JFK. Wildes, in addition to being the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey for two terms, has served as a federal prosecutor. He made a few phone calls to former colleagues, a letter was drafted and the parents “were given every courtesy,” he said, and entered the US without incident.

For Wildes, representing immigrants goes to the core of who he is, as an American and as a Jew. On one side his grandparents came from Poland and Russia, on the other from Liechtenstein.

Wildes was raised in a Modern Orthodox household and continues to live his life through this prism. His brother, Rabbi Mark Wildes (also a trained lawyer), is the founder and director of the popular Manhattan Jewish Experience. Wildes sits on the outreach organization’s board.

Until the First Lady, the firm’s most famous client was John Lennon. Wilde’s father represented him in 1970 when Richard Nixon wanted to deport the Beatle for his political activism. Today the song “Imagine” plays when callers are put on hold at Wildes and Weinberg.

Trump approached Wildes last September when questions surfaced regarding Melania Trump’s immigration to the US. She released a letter, signed by Wildes that unequivocally denied allegations she worked illegally in the US before acquiring the right work visa.

However, two months after that letter was published, the Associated Press reported that in the nearly two months before Trump received her work visas, the First Lady was paid for 10 modeling assignments.

Wildes continues to represent Trump on immigration matters as well as in a $150 million libel lawsuit against the Daily Mail. He also represents her parents Viktor and Amalija Knaus, who live in Trump Tower. Wildes wouldn’t clarify their immigration status, saying only “they are here.”

As for the executive order, Wildes agrees the nation must be protected. Yet, the current list of seven nations appears arbitrary and ill conceived, he said. It neither includes Indonesia or Saudi Arabia, the origins of 16 of the 19 hijackers in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

Trump and the majority of GOP members of Congress argue the executive order will keep terrorists from flooding the country. However, it must be noted the US knows precisely who gets resettled here, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The less than one percent of refugees chosen for permanent resettlement in a new country are already required to go through an arduous vetting process, according to Chris Boain, spokesperson for the UNHCR.

It takes between 18 and 24 months to go through the US process, which includes background checks by government multiple agencies. Individuals don’t reach that point until after UNHCR or another international agency does an initial vetting that lasts several weeks to several months, according to the UNHCR.

Additionally, the majority of these refugees, including Syrian refugees, must submit biometric data, including retinal scans and fingerprints. This information is collected from virtually all Syrians four-years-old and above. Only then will the UN refer the refugee to a county for resettlement, according to the UNHCR.

However, Wildes said there are countries where the vetting procedures need to be tightened.

‘There are countries where law enforcement is not as it should be and biometric data can be purchased and dummied up’

“In a nutshell there are countries where law enforcement is not as it should be and biometric data can be purchased and dummied up,” Wildes said.

Even so, Wildes said he finds the order wrong.

He isn’t alone.

On Tuesday several refugee organizations joined the fight. HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees, initiated a legal challenge against the order.

“As an organization that has long partnered with the US government, litigation is unprecedented for HIAS, but we feel we have no other choice,” said HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield.

“We cannot remain silent as Muslim refugees are turned away just for being Muslim, just as we could not stand idly by when the US turned away Jewish refugees fleeing Germany during the 1930s and 40s. Our history and our values, as Jews and as Americans, require us to fight this illegal and immoral new policy with every tool at our disposal — including litigation,” said Hetfield.