Visa program touted by Kushners has fraught political history
- by Andrea Singleton
- in Global
- — May 9, 2017
She mentioned her brother's service as chief executive of Kushner Companies, the family business from which he resigned in January, saying he had left to serve in the Trump administration... His family's promotional efforts in China come amid widespread criticism of the EB-5 visa program, which has grown popular among wealthy foreigners seeking to move to the US but faces allegations of fraud and misuse.
The real estate firm said in a statement Monday that Meyer was attempting to "make clear that her brother had stepped away from the company in January and has nothing to do with this project" when she mentioned him to investors in Beijing. Marketing materials for the event promoted Nicole Kushner Meyer as Jared's sister, and cited the Kushner family's "celebrity" status.
Nicole Kushner Meyer, Kushner's sister, asked investors gathered at the event to "consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex".
The Post contacted the White House regarding Trump's decision to sign a bill extending the EB-5 program a day before the family of one of his top advisers exploited it in a Chinese investment pitch.
Under the visa program, entrepreneurs (along with their spouses and unmarried children under 21) are eligible to apply for a green card if they make the necessary investment in a commercial enterprise in the USA and plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified US workers.
At Saturday's event, attendee Wang Yun, a Chinese investor, said the Kushner family's ties to Trump were an obvious part of the project's appeal.
Ms Meyer mentioned her brother on Saturday and Sunday while urging investors to put $500,000 (£386,500) into a New Jersey real estate project in exchange for investor visas and residency cards in the United States through the so-called EB-5 programme.
Meyer mentioned her brother and touted the investment opportunity as important to "me and my entirely family", according to both The New York Times and The Washington Post.
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Wealthy Chinese citizens have been falling over themselves to participate in the EB-5 program, which makes immigrants eligible to apply for a green card if they invest over $500,000 in a project that creates U.S.jobs.
Chinese citizens have snapped up more than 80 percent of the visas issued under the program since 2011, according to Invest in the U.S., an industry association, and there's a huge backlog of applications. "But some who attended described an investor pitch similar to the one in Beijing, and Mr. Trump's political power was palpable at the Shanghai event even if his name went unsaid", they write. It is also to be noted that in 2014, almost 90% of the EB-5 visas were issued to Chinese nationals. The firm has long raised money for its real estate ventures from the EB-5 program, which awards legal residency in the United States to foreign investors.
Kushner Companies has already benefited from the EB-5 visa program, taking in $50 million in investments to complete a 50-story, Trump-branded apartment complex in Jersey City, N.J.
A White House spokesman said the administration would work with Congress to evaluate "wholesale reform" of the program, which might include "raising the price of the visa".
Javier Hernandez, the New York Times' China correspondent, was escorted from Saturday's session at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Beijing. In September 2015, the Bipartisan Policy Center estimated that 44,000 people, a third of them foreign investors and the rest family members, had qualified since 1992.
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Organizers of the investor meeting didn't seem to want reporters there.
