Kushner Companies used creative mapmaking to gain visa-tied funds
NEW YORK (AP) — The Kushner Cos. engaged in a bit of creative mapmaking to qualify one of its buildings in a booming New Jersey waterfront neighborhood across from Manhattan for a federal visa-for-investment program targeting struggling areas.
Emails obtained by The Associated Press show that the family of President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner placed its 65 Bay Street building in Jersey City in a map stringing together three dozen other areas, some with high unemployment.
The map was included in a 2015 application to the EB-5 visa program that allows overseas investors to obtain U.S. residency in exchange for investments of $500,000 or more in rural areas or those with high unemployment.
The maps are legal, and many other developers engage in the practice. But the practice is one of the reasons the EB-5 visa program has come under criticism from both Democrats and Republicans.
James Yolles, a spokesman for the Kushner Cos., declined to comment. The Kushner property is co-owned by developer KABR Group. A person at KABR said no one was available to comment late in the day and an email was not immediately answered.
The special maps were reported earlier by The Washington Post.
The building at 65 Bay Street has licensed the Trump name from the president's company, and is better known as "Trump Bay Street." It received millions from wealthy overseas investors through the EB-5 program.
The Kushner Cos. was recently pitching to potential EB-5 investors in China for another Jersey City property. Called One Journal Square, it is a planned 79-story two tower complex in a struggling area of the city. The company is seeking 300 wealthy Chinese to invest a total of $150 million.
Jared Kushner's sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer, created a stir in March after reports she had mentioned her brother, a senior adviser to Trump, in a presentation in China. Marketing materials for the event also cited the Kushner family's "celebrity" status.
The Kushner Cos. said Meyer's intention was not to use the connection to the White House to lure investors. Jared Kushner stepped down as CEO of the Kushner Cos. when he joined the White House. His lawyer has said that he has sold his stake in One Journal Square.
To handle the mapmaking for Trump Bay Street, the Kushner Cos. turned to Evans, Carroll & Associates, an economic consultancy in Boca Raton, Florida.
On May 6, 2015, Evans emailed the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development requesting that it review a proposed map stretching over two dozen census tracts.