Amie Ferris-Rotman is a writer in London. Previously, she was a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University.

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia—In the gray drizzle of the Slovenian capital, a crowd of hundreds gathered in February to protest the flow of foreign refugees through their tiny country. Confronted with riot police, some cried, “Traitors!” Others waved the red-white-and-blue striped Slovenian flag. Then the crowd chanted something bizarre, the name of the Republican presidential nominee: “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump!”

Yes, Trump is being invoked in the internal debates of this former Yugoslav country framed by the Adriatic Sea and the Alps, with the political far-right here embracing the American’s strongly anti-immigrant, anti-ISIS rhetoric. “In Slovenia, we look at migrant problems in similar terms as Trump does,” says Andrej Sisko, the head of the right-wing Movement of United Slovenia, whose members attended the February rally and want to keep all refugees out.


Slovenia isn’t alone in this regard. For the far-right across Europe, a U.S. presidential nominee who opposes immigration is something of a validation—a counter-symbol to America’s historical role in suppressing ethnic conflicts abroad and professing to welcome migrants in its own borders. Politicians like France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Matteo Salvini and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, have used Twitter and personal video tributes and even sent envoys to make overtures to Trump, hoping for collaboration and a powerful endorsement.

But unlike other European countries wrestling with mass migration, Slovenia also has a personal connection to Trump, making his political rise a matter of national pride, and support for him here all the more acute: The candidate’s wife, Melania (née Knavs, later changed to Knauss), grew up under the cloak of Communism in the Slovenian town of Sevnica. The Trumps have graced more than a few magazine covers here during the course of Donald’s campaign. Now, some Slovenian politicians are even hoping for a special diplomatic and business relationship with the United States should the New York billionaire be elected.

While Trump has not commented on Slovenia’s migrant crisis in particular, he has openly aligned himself with those resisting further migration into Europe, and his vow to keep Muslim and Mexican immigrants out of the United States—in part by building a 2,000-mile wall along the southern U.S. border—certainly resonates here. In April, Trump criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “open-door” policy for war refugees. The “many young, strong men on those [migrant] lines … could be ISIS,” the candidate said recently. “I don’t believe [Germany will] ever be the same, maybe in 200 years.” He was even blunter in a radio interview this week: “You’re going to destroy Europe. Germany is going down. They’re all going down. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable what’s happening in Europe.”

Left: The first group of 28 Iraqi and Syrian refugees arrive at an asylum center on the outskirts of the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana. As part of a new European Union deal, Slovenia will accept 567 refugees from Greece before the end of next year. Right: A young woman runs past barbed wire graffiti, reading "Security for whom? For Slovenia!" in the center of Ljubljana. | Joel van Houdt

In a contentious nod at its fractured past, Europe has already been building walls in an effort to staunch the flow of more than 1 million economic migrants and war refugees from countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Syria—the largest human migration since World War II. Over the past four years, such fences have sprung up in parts of Greece, Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Austria—and Slovenia. With a modest population of 2 million people, the Central European country saw some 500,000 asylum seekers traverse its borders last year, often on foot, at a funereal pace, causing the government to erect a southern fence with Croatia in November. When I visited the border in May, the claws of razor-wire dug into empty ground, and deserted white tents flapped in the wind, reminders of the refugees who have moved on, seeking richer and more welcoming nations farther north.

Slovenia’s left-wing prime minister, Miro Cerar, called the country’s border fence a “very hard” step to take. And under a new plan with the European Union, of which Slovenia is a member, the country has promised to take in 567 refugees by the end of next year. But Slovenia’s right-wing establishment has fully embraced anti-refugee sentiment, and they are taking at least some inspiration from America’s GOP nominee, according to Sisko, who believes the influx of migrants with a “completely different culture and religion” poses “a sort of genocide of the Slovenians.” (A fervent nationalist, he sported a blue tracksuit with SLOVENIJA stitched on his chest and a baseball cap depicting a heraldic panther when we met, in his northeastern hometown of Maribor, near Austria.) “Merkel invited them all—she is the real problem here. She should pay,” says Sisko, sounding more than a bit like Trump.

“Slovenia has abandoned its sovereignty,” adds Bernard Brscic, a well-known neoliberal economist in Slovenia who also participated in the Ljubljana rally in February. “This is not a multicultural country,” he says. We met at a corner café in Ljubljana where cigarette smoke thickened the air around us, and patrons drank espressos with glasses of water, Italian-style. Tall and slender with gleaming black eyes, Brscic speaks impeccable, almost quaint English, which he learned in London, a city he complains has “too many immigrants,” a place “that feels more like Islamabad.”

And Trump? “One of my heroes,” Brscic says, with “the best American policy since Ronald Reagan.”

Left: Bernard Brscic, a neoliberal economist and fan of Donald Trump, in a cafe in the center of Ljubljana. Right: Andrej Sisko, president of the Movement of United Slovenia, a far-right political party, on the balcony of a shopping mall in Maribor, near the Austrian border. | Joel van Houdt

“What Slovenians like about Trump, besides his penchant for Slavic beauty, is not his show business, but that he’s able to detect the problems of his country,” he says. Is Slovenian opinion influenced by Trump’s marriage to their famous native daughter? “Of course it is, it’s a big part,” Brscic says. Even though Melania herself was an immigrant to the United States? Brscic bristles: “If we extend this argument to infinity, all Americans are legal immigrants, and the Indians should be in control!”

Sisko’s Movement of United Slovenia has yet to win any seats in the Slovenian parliament, but even center- and left-leaning politicians here echo some of Trump’s rhetoric. Slovenia has seen nowhere near the level of jihadi activity found in other parts of Europe, yet politicians like Ljudmila Novak—leader of the center-right New Slovenia-Christian Democrats party, which holds about 5 percent of the seats in the national assembly—have said “it’s possible there are more out there” and that the country should therefore “strengthen our refugee security checks.” And while she stresses that “Trump’s rhetoric on Muslims needs to change,” Novak says she welcomes his approach to refugees. “These things must be processed properly. In Slovenia, we haven’t had a good solution yet.”

On my visit to Slovenia, the country’s first group of asylum seekers under the new EU plan—some 28 from Iraq and Syria, made up mostly of families—was arriving in Ljubljana from Greece. Yet even taking in a relatively small number of migrants has sparked a backlash. On the Old World plazas and cobbled streets of the capital, graffiti declares, “Refugees welcome,” but also, “Leave our small country alone!” “The locals will leave you alone, but they will never accept you,” Philip, a lanky 22-year-old refugee from Eritrea, told me on a urine-soaked corner in Ljubljana, where he passes his time reading.

So what would a President Trump—pronounced by locals as “Traamp”—actually mean for Slovenia?

New Window Optics: In Melania’s Homeland: Scenes from the small European country that could soon have a claim on the White House. | Joel van Houdt

The government in Ljubljana, citing a policy of non-interference, does not have an official preference in the U.S. election. “He certainly married a beautiful [Slovenian],” the country’s top migration official, Nina Gregori, told me. “But we’re just like America: We’re divided into pro and anti-Trump camps.”

Others hope Slovenia, through its intimate link to Trump, will benefit politically and commercially if Melania becomes first lady and Donald, president. “Behind every successful man, there’s a successful woman, and in this case it happens to be a Slovenian!” Sisko boasts. “We should see the fact that [Melania is] Slovenian as a small window of opportunity for improvement of bilateral relations,” he told me.

In Melania’s dainty childhood town of Sevnica, about an hour’s drive east of Ljubljana, locals are even hoping for business opportunities with Trump the property mogul. The face of town mayor Srecko Ocvirk lit up when we talked of Melania, making his Amish-style beard, low and gray, jiggle about. On April 1, Ocvirk dreamt up a quixotic joke that aired on Slovenian TV: Trump was buying the town’s medieval hilltop castle, Ocvirk told the presenter, and its garden would be renamed in honor of Melania. In its dimly lit cavern, the castle manager had chosen regional wines for the couple: a fresh yellow Muscat for Melania and an intense red Blaufränkisch for Donald.

Barbed wire along the border between Slovenia and Croatia near the town of Rigonce and Dobova. | Joel van Houdt

The mayor chortled as he recalled what was an April Fool’s prank—no hope, for now, of a Trump International Hotel in Sevnica. But there was some sincerity behind the gimmick. At almost $4 billion, Trump’s estimated worth is a tenth of Slovenia’s gross domestic output, tantalizing for a town with one degree of separation from the man. (Trump’s in-laws, the Knavs, split their time between New York and Sevnica, and were home when we visited the town. When a photographer and I paused by their house, a chunky bodyguard leapt at us, quipping, in English, “The owner has connections.”) Ocvirk insists “there are several areas [Trump] could invest in here: our tradition of industry, our untouched nature.” His assistant gave me a thick press kit containing information and catalogues of Sevnica-domiciled businesses, such as the reputable furniture maker Stilles. “See, it’s perfect for Trump,” he says, gently smiling as he pointed at the baroque wooden dressers and ornate bedposts. “We’d like to see this in his Florida mansion.”

For Melania’s former neighbor Zlata, a 69-year-old woman who fondly recalls seeing the long-haired girl play among the collection of cement tower blocks, Trump is “an excellent leader.” But would he have her vote? “Nope. I’m with Hillary. She is a woman!” Perched on her balcony holding a pair of slippers, Zlata said she has enjoyed the sudden global interest in her tiny town. “I only wish I didn’t have this language barrier.”

Will Trump really make Slovenia great again, as Ocvirk hopes? At a minimum, Slovenians hope he’ll make it known. “Lots of Americans don’t even know where Slovenia is,” Novak, the center-right politician, says, a slightly mischievous curl to her lips. “With a Slovenian first lady in the White House, that will change.”