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A persuasive argument can be made that President Donald Trumps most trusted White House confidant is his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. The husband of first daughter Ivanka, Kushner has outlasted almost every presidential appointee except for his wife, who has hung on since Day One.

Recently, the Brookings Institution compiled a White House turnover analysis of Trumps most influential inside advisers, or A team. As of May 1, turnover is 86 percent, with many of the departures labeled as resigned under pressure.

More difficult to measure, Brookings admitted, is Cabinet turnover. Case in point, Nikki Haley was upgraded from U.N. ambassador to the Cabinet. After she resigned, her Cabinet post evaporated.

Despite the confusion associated with tracking the inner circles comings and goings, Brookings concluded, Trumps Cabinet turnover rate is record setting.

Throughout the turmoil, though, Kushner remains on the Cabinet. In January 2017 when Trump named Ivanka and Jared as advisers, his base wondered what possible good could come from adding family to the White House team. Little did the questioning base know theyd be poster children and proponents for high immigration, the equal of any congressional Democrat.

Well-placed Washington insiders reported that Kushner, who has a long history of immigration advocacy, was the loudest voice in the pushback against Trumps April 22 executive order to temporarily suspend immigration.

Globalist Kushner, sources said, immediately objected to the order and led an internal battle over the suspension. He quickly became one of the loudest voices pushing back on a full ban, and sought to carve out exemptions for refugees, temporary workers under the H-1B visa program, and farmworkers under the H-2A visa program.

Only a couple of weeks have passed since Kushner highjacked his boss original, more restrictive immigration order, and in that brief period the jobs landscape has dramatically worsened. The question is no longer When will the economy restart? or When will the 36 million unemployed creep back into the labor force?

The new reality is as long as the status quo remains, many companies will declare bankruptcy, their employees will be set adrift, and those individuals may eventually have to file for personal bankruptcy.

J. Crew was the first of the major embattled retailers to file bankruptcy, with 15,000 on its payroll. Neiman Marcus, with its 13,500 employees, quickly followed, and others on the brink include JCPenney and Rite Aid.

The Walt Disney Company, with its theme park, cruise line and entertainment businesses hammered, has lost one-third of its market value. It hopes to recoup $80 billion through a debt offering, but Wall Street analysts peg the company, with its 223,000 employees, at a 41 percent chance of going bankrupt.

While some failing companies have been teetering for years, the COVID-19 pandemic has landed the knockout punch. Their employees must now depend on slow-to-arrive unemployment insurance checks.

The longer this lockdown persists, the less the need for employment-based immigration. As the June 23 deadline for Trumps executive order nears, he can either listen to Kushner echo Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumers come one, come all immigration dream, or he can bury the hatchet and listen to his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

Sessions has said that the United States has no jobs, and will lay off more people this week than last week. Hes chided his old congressional colleagues for ignoring the interest of the American people. Its (high immigration) in the interest of their (Congress) corporate friends and some ideology that they adhere to.

Instinctively, Trump knows importing foreign labor during this economic implosion is folly, but he needs the political courage to act on his common-sense predisposition. Hes been reluctant to do that and come November, he may regret his waffling.

Joe Guzzardi is an analyst and researcher with Progressives for Immigration Reform who now lives in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at [emailprotected], or follow him on Twitter: @joeguzzardi19. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.

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