Nicole Kushner Meyer, the next generation member of the Kushner properties group, invited rich Chinese investors to make investments in the group’s luxury apartment complex Kushner 1, in New Jersey. She gave presentations to rich Chinese citizens and urged them to invest USD 500,000 in the US to obtain the EB-5 immigrant investor visa. The selling propositioning was that the Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big. By that logic, if the Chinese invested in Kushner properties and migrated to the US using EB-5 visa programme, they would gain and make it big too. The EB-5 known as the “golden” visa has been popular among the Chinese investors. China gets more than 80% of the US visas issued in that category.
The Chinese company Qiaowai, which is working with the Kushner group to raise funding for Kushner 1, hosted the promotion event. The project is in proximity to Manhattan and is said to create more than 6000 jobs. The project generated interest among the Chinese investors as it comes from President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner’s family. Jared gave up his business responsibilities before taking up position as a White House advisor. However, Nicole’s promotion style of tying real estate investment to the visa programme while flaunting proximity to the administration, invited criticism in public policy circles.
Source: The Washington Post, May 6, 2017.