According to several media outlets, the Kushner family told 100 wealthy Chinese investors on Saturday that they could secure US visas by investing half a million dollars. The Washington Post reported that Nicole Kushner Meyer, the sister of Jared Kushner – an advisor to the White House – told the Chinese investors that they could get EB-5 US visas in exchange for an investment of at least $500,000 in a luxury New Jersey apartment complex, during a speech in Beijing.
EB-5 US visas enable immigrants to gain immigrant US visas for a minimum $500,000 investment in projects that result in the creation of new jobs in the US. Critics on the left and right of politics have objected to the program on the grounds that it enables rich foreigners to buy entrance to the US instead of going through traditional channels like everyone else.
Billions of dollars are brought into the US by the EB-5 US visa program, but there have also been many examples of fraudulent cases, according to the New York Times. President Donald Trump, and President Barack Obama before him, embraced the program as a way to generate investment.
Kushner was previously responsible for raising as much as $50 million via Chinese investors for one of the real estate magnet’s apartments complexes. At the Beijing event, Chinese investors were told by Kushner family business representatives that Trump may change the old rules on immigration and that they should move fast to get a US visa.