General Discussion

What is the Einstein visa? And how did Melania Trump get one?

Mrs Trump began applying for the visa in 2000, when she was Melania Knauss, a Slovenian model working in New York and dating Donald Trump. She was approved in 2001, one of just five people from Slovenia to win the coveted visa that year, according to the Post.

SNIP---
Mrs Trump came to the US in 1996, first on a tourist visa then later a string of working visas for skilled immigrants, according to her lawyer. She was working as a model in New York when she met Mr Trump at a party in 1998, a relationship that considerably raised her celebrity profile.

SNIP--

Ms McFadden said she had secured EB-1s for a range of diverse specialities, from coaching a specific football position to scientific ballooning. The trick was to define a field narrow enough to excel in, she said, but not too narrow that immigration authorities won't take it seriously.
But where does that leave Mrs Trump?
She does not appear at the time to have excelled in a niche area of modelling, nor won awards or had her work written about in significant publications.
Her lawyer has declined to publish details of her application, so we can't know what she submitted as evidence. But she may have been boosted by high-profile testimonial letters, said Nita Upadhye, a US immigration specialist at NNU Immigration Law.
Testimonials form part of the application, and the more high-profile the reference the more weight it carries. If Mrs Trump, already dating Mr Trump at the time she applied, secured letters from luminaries in fashion, that would be significant, Ms Upadhye said.
"If you're in the acting world, and Quentin Tarantino or Steven Spielberg writes a letter saying you're the next best thing, that can be very persuasive," she said.

SNIP---
"It's about getting testimonials from someone who is extraordinary in their own right and has some name recognition, but who can also attest to specific achievements of the applicant. And I'm sure she probably had some pretty significant letters, maybe from Donald Trump."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43256318