Amalija Knavs

Amalija Knavs (Ulčnik; July 9, 1945 – January 9, 2024) was a Slovenian-American woman who was the mother of Melania Trump, the wife of former U.S. president Donald Trump and First Lady of the United States from 2017 to 2021.

In 2018, Knavs and her husband, Viktor, obtained green cards and then became naturalized U.S. citizens using the U.S.'s family-based immigration program, which Trump had denounced as "chain migration".

Early life
Amalija Ulčnik was born on July 9, 1945, in Judendorf-Straßengel, Austria. She was raised there and in Slovenia, which was at the time part of Yugoslavia. Her mother, Amalija (Gliha) Ulčnik, was a seamstress and homemaker and her father, Anton Ulčnik, was a cobbler and later a red-onion farmer.

In her youth she worked on her family's onion farm. From 1964 to 1997, she worked at a state-owned children's clothing factory where she created and monitored textile patterns.

Knavs met her husband, Viktor, a member of the Sevnica Communist Party in 1966. After marrying, they lived in Sevnica, Slovenia. The couple had two daughters: Ines (born 1968) and Melania (born 1970).

Later life and death
By August 2017, Amalija and her husband were living in New York City. It was later confirmed that Melania sponsored their green cards. In May 2018, Amalija was in attendance for the White House Rose Garden ceremony which saw Melania launch her Be Best public awareness campaign. In August 2018, Amalija and Viktor Knavs became U.S. citizens after taking an oath at a New York City courthouse. The New York Times described her as not adhering in public to the "stereotypes of an American grandmother".

On January 9, 2024, Knavs died at a hospital in Miami, Florida, at the age of 78. She had been "very ill" since late 2023, with sources confirming to People that Melania skipped a Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve party to attend to her bedside.