Melania Trump will push for updating a foster care program during a rare visit to Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON (AP) - Melania Trump planned a rare appearance on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to join a roundtable discussion with House lawmakers who are sponsoring legislation to update a nearly 30-year-old foster care program by broadening access to a range of services.

The first lady began working on foster care issues after President Donald Trump's first term in office ended in 2021. Her trip to the branch of government at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue follows a similar and successful lobbying effort last year for Congress to send legislation to the president to protect women and children from online sexual exploitation.

The visit also comes a week after Melania Trump's surprise on-camera statement at the White House in which she denied ties to Jeffrey Epstein and knowledge of his crimes, and urged Congress to hold a hearing for his victims. She also demanded an end to "lies" linking her to the late financier and convicted sex offender.

The first lady said on social media that she looked forward to working with Congress to "advance new legislation designed to protect and empower individuals from the foster care community." Their shared mission, she said, is "to strengthen America's next generation."

She was meeting Wednesday afternoon with members of the House Ways and Means Committee, and people who were in foster care.

Republican and Democratic members of the committee have introduced several bills to update the Chafee foster care program to improve outcomes for young people aging out of the foster care system. The measures would increase their access to housing, education and workforce training programs, among other things, to help them succeed in the transition to adulthood and independence.

The program provides support to foster youth and former foster youth, ages 14 to 21, as they leave the system. The committee said the bipartisan proposals would be the most significant update since the Chafee program was created in 1999.

The Government Accountability Office published a report in January 2025 detailing how states were returning millions of dollars in unused Chafee program funds to the federal government, despite unmet needs of foster youth.

Last November, President Trump created the "Fostering the Future" program by executive order to have federal entities, nonprofits, educational institutions and the private sector work together to improve career and educational opportunities for children raised in foster care.

The first lady, who joined her husband in the Oval Office for the executive order signing, separately spearheads a broader "Fostering the Future" initiative that is part of the "Be Best" child-focused campaign she launched during his first presidential term. The program offers scholarships to current and former foster youth.

Last month, she hosted a similarly themed summit with counterparts from more than 40 countries and called on them to work together to improve access to education and technology for children around the world.

In March 2025, Melania Trump used her first public appearance after resuming the role of first lady to join a Capitol Hill roundtable discussion of the Take It Down Act. President Trump signed the bill into law two months later, making it a federal crime to knowingly publish or threaten to publish intimate images without a person's consent.

Last week, Melania Trump and the White House separately called attention to the first conviction under the new law after an Ohio man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to cybercrimes that included real and AI-generated sexually explicit images and threats of violence to numerous victims.