The chairman of a Senate committee has called for an investigation into “potentially fraudulent statements” made by companies touting business opportunities involving top White House adviser Jared Kushner’s family through a controversial visa program for wealthy investors, according to a report on Monday.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter on May 24 to the Department of Homeland Security and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He wants them to look into claims made by Chinese migration agency Qiaowai and the US Immigration Fund during the marketing of the Kushner family’s One Journal Square Project in Jersey City to Chinese investors, Reuters reported.
The Immigration Fund (USIF), which is based in Jupiter, Fla., contracted with Qiaowai to find potential investors for projects, including One Journal Square, through the EB-5 program that offers qualified foreign investors the chance at a green card in exchange for a $500,000 investment in a U.S. business, the wire service reported.
Citing in his letter reports in Reuters and the New York Times, Grassley said Qiaowai promoted its relationship with the Trump administration as a “guarantee that potential EB-5 investors will receive lawful permanent residence in return for a no-risk investment in One Journal Square.”
Earlier this month, Nicole Kushner Meyer , the sister of Kushner, came under fire for bringing up her brother’s association to the Trump White House when she was hawking the One Journal Square project to wealthy Chinese investors during conferences in Beijing and Shanghai earlier this month.
The meetings came just days after Trump signed legislation renewing the EB-5 program, which is known as the “golden visa” in China.
She later apologized for using her brother’s name.
But Meyer’s use of Kushner’s name during her sales pitch angered Trump, and the president has made several snarky comments to his son-in-law about it to show his displeasure, according to a New York Times report on Monday.
Grassley’s letter said the companies assured investors that Trump “would make sure it came through” and “there was no chance it could fail.”
“It is a fundamental rule of the EB-5 program that an applicant’s investment must remain ‘at risk’ up to the end of the alien’s conditional permanent resident status, and a ‘guaranteed’ investment fails this basic EB-5 test; if Qiaowai is in fact guaranteeing the safety of the investment principal, all related EB-5 petitions should be rejected by USCIS,” Grassley wrote in the letter.
A spokesman for USIF called called the allegations “distortions” that are “unsupported by the facts.”
“Qiaowai and U.S. Immigration Fund are fully in compliance with all laws relating to the sale of securities to immigrant investors,” said Stu Loeser, a spokesman for USIF, in an emailed response to Reuters.
Kushner Companies and the SEC declined to comment. Qiaowai, KABR Group and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment over the weekend, Reuters said.
Companies that market investments though the visa program must comply with US securities laws.
Marketing schemes involving EB-5 must also follow immigration guidelines set by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security