Kushner Family Flogs $500,000 ‘Investor Visa’ to
Wealthy Chinese
By
Congcong Zhang
May 06,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- BEIJING
— The Kushner
family came to the United States as refugees,
worked hard and made it big — and if you invest
in Kushner properties, so can you.
That
was the message delivered Saturday by White
House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s sister to a
ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors,
renewing questions about the Kushner family’s
business ties to China.
Over
several hours of slide shows and presentations,
representatives from the Kushner family business
urged Chinese citizens gathered at the
Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing
hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey
real estate project to secure what’s known as an
investor visa.
The EB-5
immigrant investor visa program,
which allows foreign investors to invest in U.S.
projects that create jobs and then apply to
immigrate, has been used by both the Trump and
Kushner family businesses.
But President Trump’s vow to crack down on
immigration, as well as criticism from members
of Congress, has led to questions about the
future of a program known here as the “golden
visa.”
The EB-5 has been extremely
popular among
rich Chinese who are eager to get their families
— and their wealth — out of the country, though
the fact that some move their money out
illegally has made the program unpopular with
the Chinese government, too.
In the
ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton on Saturday,
Chinese investors were advised to invest sooner
rather than later in case the rules change.
“Invest early, and you will invest under the old
rules,” one speaker said.
The
woman identified as “Jared’s sister” was
believed to be Nicole Kushner, who is involved
in the family business, not Dara Kushner, who
generally stays out of the spotlight. But the
woman’s face was not clearly visible from the
back of the ballroom, where reporters were told
to remain.
Saturday’s event in Beijing was hosted by the
Chinese company Qiaowai, which connects U.S.
companies with Chinese investors. The tagline on
a brochure for the event: “Invest $500,000 and
immigrate to the United States.”
Qiaowai is working with
Kushner to secure funding for Kushner 1, a real
estate project in New Jersey. Promotional
materials tout the buildings’ proximity to
Manhattan and note that the project will create
more than 6,000 jobs.
“This
project has stable funding, creates sufficient
jobs and guarantees the safety of investors’
money,” one description reads.
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Although there was no visible reference to
Trump, the materials noted the Kushner family’s
“celebrity” status. Wang Yun, a Chinese investor
who attended the event, said the Kushner
family’s ties to Trump, via son-in-law Jared,
were a part of the project’s appeal — but also a
source of concern.
“Even
though this is the project of the son-in-law’s
family, of course it is still affiliated,” Wang.
Wang
reasoned that the link to Trump would be a boon
if the presidency goes well but could be
disastrous if it does not: “We heard that there
are rumors that he is the most likely to be
impeached president in American history. That’s
why I doubt this project.”
Many of
the people who attended the event declined to be
interviewed, citing privacy concerns, or were
blocked by organizers from speaking to the news
media.
Though
the event was publicly advertised in Beijing,
the hosts were exceptionally anxious about the
presence of reporters.
Journalists were initially seated at the back of
the ballroom, but as the presentations got
underway, a public-relations representative
asked The Washington Post to leave, saying the
presence of foreign reporters threatened the
“stability” of the event.
At one
point, organizers grabbed a reporter’s phone and
backpack to try to force that person to leave.
Later, as investors started leaving the
ballroom, organizers physically surrounded
attendees to stop them from giving interviews.
Asked
why reporters were asked to leave, a
public-relations representative, who declined to
identify herself, said simply, “This is not the
story we want.”
Congcong Zhang reported
from Beijing.
This article was first published by
Washington Post
-
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
