Kushner Companies apologises for touting US presidential family ties in China
A property developer owned by relatives of the US president’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has apologised for touting the Kushner connection at an investor presentation in China.
Kushner’s sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer, took to the stage at Beijing’s Ritz-Carlton hotel on Saturday as part of a tour of mainland cities to attract wealthy Chinese investors into a New Jersey luxury development with the chance of getting a US green card in return.
“In 2008, my brother Jared Kushner joined the family company as CEO, and recently moved to Washington to join the administration,” Kushner Meyer said at the Kushner Companies conference, according to media reports.
The Beijing event promoting One Journal Square sparked discussion in the United States over whether Jared Kushner’s family’s business would benefit from decisions Trump makes with regards to the government’s EB-5 programme, which grants visas to foreigners investing at least US$500,000 in designated US projects. Kushner resigned from his position in the company in January.
“In the course of discussing this project and the firm’s history with potential investors, Ms Meyer wanted to make clear that her brother had stepped away from the company in January and has nothing to do with this project,” Kushner Companies said in a statement.
“Kushner Companies apologises if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors.”
While some US Congress members have been calling for changes to, or full expiration of, the EB-5 programme for several years, legislation signed by Trump last week keeps the programme intact until September 30.
During her seven-minute speech at Shanghai’s Four Seasons Hotel on Sunday, Kushner Meyer did not mention her brother or Trump, talking instead about her family’s history since her grandparents went to the United States as refugees in the 1940s.
The roadshow events are jointly organised by Kushner Companies, which Jared Kushner was associated with until he joined the US administration this year, and mainland migration agency Qiaowai. Similar events will be held at the InterContinental in Shenzhen on May 13 and the Four Seasons in Guangzhou on May 14.
The EB-5 programme has become more controversial as uptake began to surge in recent years, particularly among Chinese investors looking for a faster way to secure US green cards relative to wait times for those seeking visas based on job qualifications.
The programme designates private entities including property developers as “regional centres”, which are expected to create jobs with the projects they undertake with money they collect from foreign investors. The investors and immediate family members, in turn, are eligible for visas , which can then become green cards.
“The [EB-5 visa] programme, which has been replete with fraud and abuse, allows foreign investors to obtain a green card and eventually citizenship in exchange for a US$500,000 or US$1 million investment that creates at least 10 jobs,” Chuck Grassley, a Republican Senator representing Iowa, said in a statement three months ago.
“The lower investment level is intended to spur investments in rural and high-unemployment areas.
However, the programme lacks a reliable or verifiable way to measure job creation. Furthermore, many of the wealthiest areas in America have been inaccurately designated as ‘high-unemployment’ in order to allow investors to obtain a green card for the smaller US$500,000 investment.”
Nearly 7,000 EB-5 visas were issued to Mainland Chinese investors last year, making them the number one nationality in the allocation, according to State Department data. At 234, South Korean investors were the second largest group.
