A White House statement said the administration “is evaluating wholesale reform of the EB-5 program to ensure<br />that the program is used as intended and that investment is being spread to all areas of the country.”<br />The statement also said that Mr. Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, has recused himself from EB-5 related matters: “Jared takes the ethics rules very seriously<br />and would never compromise himself or the administration.” In a statement from Kushner Companies, Mr. Kushner’s sister said it was not her intent to mention her brother as a way to lure investors.<br />Kushner Family Stands to Gain From Visa Rules in Trump’s First Major Law -<br />By ERIC LIPTON and JESSE DRUCKERMAY 8, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — It was the first major piece of legislation<br />that President Trump signed into law, and buried on Page 734 was one sentence that brought a potential benefit to the president’s extended family: renewal of a program offering permanent residence in the United States to affluent foreigners investing money in real estate projects here.<br />In fact, Kushner Companies — when Mr. Kushner was still at the helm — had received $50 million in EB-5 financing for<br />a separate New Jersey project, a Trump-branded luxury high-rise tower in Jersey City that opened late last year.<br />“It is just one more dilemma that a family with vast commercial interest has when relatives are in the federal government, particularly the White House,” said Michael H. Cardozo, who served as a deputy White House counsel in the Carter administration, which struggled with its own controversies related to the president’s brother, Billy Carter,<br />and his work on behalf of an American company seeking to get into the oil industry in Libya.<br />On Monday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, called the visa program “a stark conflict of interest for the Trump White<br />House.” Meanwhile, the ethics watchdog group Democracy 21 called for Mr. Kushner to recuse himself from all policy dealing with China.
