Ivanka Trump's sister-in-law recently visited Beijing and Shanghai to market "investor visas" to wealthy Chinese citizens.
Nicole Kushner Meyer, sister of Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, promoted the USD500,000 visas — which grant US permanent residency — at one of the events in a Beijing hotel ballroom this past weekend, reports the Washington Post.
The key message of the events, according to the WaPost: "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."
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Through slideshows and presentations, hundreds of attendees at both events, held by Chinese immigration firm QWOS, were solicited to invest in a luxury New Jersey apartment complex. The tagline on a brochure read, "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States."
Meyer was introduced as representative of "a famed celebrity investment family" and QWOS staff dropped Ivanka's name during the event, sparking concerns of conflict of interest, according to the AFP (via Shanghai Daily).
The events were hosted in Beijing and Shanghai on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
The investment would be faciliated via the EB-5 immigrant visa program, which offers citizens of other countries the chance to immigrate to the US, provided they invest at least USD500,000 American development projects, according to the New York Times. The program, which is popular among wealthy Chinese people, has been nicknamed the "golden visa." It has come under fire by American polticians and labeled by some as "US citizenship for sale." Over 80 percent of EB-5 visas are believed to have been issued to Chinese investors.
During the presentation, a slide was shown identifying US President Donald Trump as being a "key decision maker" for the EB-5 program.
Meyer was in China this weekend raising funds to support a real estate project in Jersey City known as the "One Journal Square" which is slated to commence construction in 2018. The property has two towers, nearly 1,500 luxury apartments and a pet medical center.
Speaking during the Beijing event, Meyer said that the development "means a lot to me and my entire family."
Journalists from both the WaPost and NYTimes were removed from Saturday's "private event," with researcher Congcong Zhang tweeting that she was threatened and harassed:
Zhang said that she was surrounded and grabbed by the shoulder and forced to leave — but not before her phone was confiscated. She was only allowed to get her phone back once she deleted all the photos and videos.
Security was tighter in Shanghai, and journalists were only allowed to wait in the hotel lobby on Sunday.
This is not the first time the Kushners have come under fire for using the EB-5 program to attract Chinese investors. Before transitioning to the White House, Jared Kushner was said to have raised USD50 million for a Trump-branded apartment complex from Chinese EB-5 applicants, Bloomberg reports.
This weekend's presentation highlighted that the One Journal Square project was similar to a "Trump-branded luxury development," also developed by Kushner Companies.
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And in March of this year, Kushner Companies ended a partnership with Chinese company Anbang Insurance Group that would have allowed investment in their Manhattan headquarters. The deal was controversial, and Kushner's business ties have come under scrutiny since he entered into politics. He has divested from numerous aspects of the family business — including this particular project — and sold them to a family trust that he is not a beneficiary of, according to the NYTimes.
A spokesperson for Kushner Companies apologized for this weekend's events, insisting to the NYTimes that Jared Kushner was not involved with his sister's pitch:
“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 apologizes if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms. Meyer’s intention.”
[Images via Shanghai Daily, @daphnewelkin5, @HernandezJavier]
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