Washington DC - Newly released documentation reveals how former First Lady Melania Trump managed to bring her mother into the US as her husband and then-President Donald Trump was waging a war on immigration.

On Monday, immigration records for Melania's late mother, Amalija Knavs, were shared with The Washington Post after requesting the documentation following her death in January.

The documents detail how, in 2008, Melania used a legal pathway some refer to as "chain migration," which grants US citizens the right to sponsor family members from another country to migrate to the US to get her mother in.

Knavs became a resident in 2010.

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In 2017, she applied for a green card, passed a citizenship test, and officially became a citizen the following year, along with her husband, whose records have not been made public.

As Knavs was applying, Trump was a few months into his presidency, and he had already garnered a reputation for his anti-immigration rhetoric and policies, including criticisms of "chain migration."

He sponsored a 2017 bill that didn't end up passing called the RAISE Act, which would have limited the method his wife used to only include small children and spouses, effectively tossing out the path Knavs took to become a citizen.

As Trump fights for re-election this year, his anti-immigration has gotten more aggressive, as he has promised to "begin the largest deportation operation in American history" after he wins.