First lady Melania Trump promoted artificial intelligence and robotics during a visit to a North Carolina elementary school Tuesday, joining pupils for technology demonstrations as online commentary about the appearance revived scrutiny of the rare immigration category through which she obtained permanent U.S. residency in 2001.
Trump visited Mountain View Elementary School in Jefferson, N.C., where students demonstrated projects involving AI, robotics, engineering and 3D printing. She used the appearance to argue that American children should learn emerging technologies if the U.S. is to remain competitive in artificial intelligence.
"I think they need to learn we need to lead," Trump said when asked about concerns surrounding AI. She also said children should remain vigilant as the technology develops, according to the Associated Press.
The first lady sat with fifth graders conducting a science experiment involving pressure changes in the human chest cavity before students used AI to create a video based on the model. She later toured the school's media center, where pupils were building career-research chatbots, operating 3D printers and working with robotic arms.
The Irish Star reported that pupils gave Trump instructions as she attempted to use one robotic arm to position a golf ball, an exchange that generated mocking commentary online. The AP's account documented her participation in the robotics activities but didn't characterize her as struggling with the equipment.
Trump encouraged the children to continue experimenting and told them that "anything is possible." The visit also brought new technology resources to the Ashe County school system through initiatives associated with her Be Best program.
The first lady announced access to the StudyFetch AI learning platform for 1,500 students and 100 Nvidia Jetson Nano Developer Kits, small computers designed to support hands-on work with AI and robotics. The initiative is intended to give students more direct experience with the technology rather than limiting AI instruction to classroom theory.
The appearance came during a national debate over the pace and safety of AI development. President Donald Trump had a day earlier dismissed warnings that artificial intelligence could ultimately escape human control, calling such concerns a "hoax," while executives including Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman have argued for giving safety work more time to keep pace with increasingly powerful systems.
The first lady's school appearance separately prompted renewed online discussion of her immigration history, including the EB-1 category through which she obtained a green card. That history is unrelated to the robotics demonstration, and there is no evidence that her immigration status had any connection to Tuesday's official visit.
Melania Knauss, as she was then known, became a lawful permanent resident on March 19, 2001, after self-petitioning as a model of "extraordinary ability," according to a timeline provided by her immigration attorney, Michael Wildes. She later became a U.S. citizen in 2006.
The EB-1 classification is sometimes called the "Einstein visa," but the nickname can give a misleading impression of its scope. Extraordinary-ability eligibility isn't limited to scientists or academics; federal law allows qualifying applicants from fields including the sciences, arts, education, business and athletics.
The Washington Post reported in 2018 that Trump's pre-green-card résumé included European runway work, a Camel cigarette billboard in Times Square and an appearance in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. The evidence actually submitted with her immigration petition hasn't been publicly released.
Her case was unusual statistically. Of more than one million green cards issued in 2001, 3,376 went to immigrants in the extraordinary-ability category, while five people from Slovenia received green cards through the broader EB-1 program, according to government statistics cited by the Post.
Bruce Morrison, a former Democratic congressman who chaired the House subcommittee involved in writing the Immigration Act of 1990, told the Post in 2018 that Trump's publicly known résumé appeared "inconsistent" with what he understood the requirements to be. Immigration specialists have also noted that adjudicating extraordinary ability involves evaluating evidence that isn't necessarily visible from an applicant's public profile.
Wildes defended Trump's eligibility, telling the Post that "Mrs. Trump was more than amply qualified and solidly eligible." He declined to disclose the supporting evidence, saying: "There is no reason to adjudicate her petition publicly when her privacy is so important to her."
There is no public evidence that Trump obtained her permanent residency unlawfully. Wildes' 2016 account said she self-sponsored under the extraordinary-ability provision rather than obtaining her green card through her 2005 marriage to Donald Trump.
Tuesday's official visit also had a local purpose beyond AI. Trump marked the second anniversary of Hurricane Helene, which forced area children out of school for more than 30 days and turned Mountain View Elementary first into an emergency childcare site and later into a distribution center for supplies.
