Kushner Family Leverage Trump Connections in Mainland EB-5 Push

Donald Trump may have campaigned against immigration when he ran for president, but the family of White House advisor and First-son-in-law Jared Kushner is promoting immigration to the US as part of their own campaign to drum up $150 million for a New Jersey real estate project.

At sales meetings held for wealthy Chinese investors in Shanghai and Beijing this weekend, the Kushner Companies, which Jared Kushner headed before joining Trump’s White House team, touted the family’s contacts with the president as part of their pitch to potential applicants for EB-5 investor visas, according to reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times.

The investors came to the meetings to learn more about opportunities to buy US visas by investing $500,000 or more in One Journal Square, a luxury condo complex that the New York real estate developer is building in Jersey City.

Kushner’s Sister Leads the Pitch

At the event on Saturday in Beijing, potential visa buyers heard Jared Kushner’s sister, Nicole Meyer, present on the opportunity for investment driven immigration, according to the Times account. Slides from the event seen on Chinese social media stressed President Trump’s role as the key decision maker regarding the EB-5 program.

More than 75 percent of the applications for the 10,000 EB-5 visas awarded each year go to Chinese investors, with many applicants having to wait years for all paperwork to be completed, due to overwhelming response to the opportunity.

In the sales presentation, the Jersey City project was promoted as “Kushner1.” Scheduled to break ground early next year, the planned complex includes two towers, 1,476 luxury apartments and a pet clinic.

By the time that the event came to Shanghai on Sunday, security had been enhanced, with late registration reportedly being cancelled and news media being barred entry to what previously had been promoted as a public event. One Washington Post researcher who covered the Beijing event complained that security forces threatened and harassed her, forcing the journalist to delete her recordings of the Kushner family’s pitch.

EB-5 Pitch Follows Fifth Avenue Frustration

The EB-5 sales drive is the latest China funding controversy for the Kushners, whose company reportedly had been in prolonged discussions with mainland investor Anbang Insurance to provide $400 million in funding for the New York firm’s 666 Fifth Avenue project.

With Anbang now accused of illicit market practices and having recently been disciplined by China’s insurance regulator, that investment deal has since ground to a halt.