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MIAMI, FL \u2014 MAY 18, 2017: Parishioners pray during a Haitian Flag Day service at Notre Dame d\u2019Haiti Catholic Church in Miami\u2019s Little Haiti neighborhood. That day, worshippers were awaiting a decision from the first Trump administration on whether to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitians living in the United States. Nearly a decade later, the future of Haitian TPS is again at the center of a national debate \u2014 this time with potential consequences for America\u2019s already strained healthcare workforce. (Photo by Joe Raedle\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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Throughout the United States, home health aides and nursing assistants care for some of our most vulnerable neighbors. They help people get out of bed, bathe, eat, take their medications and use the bathroom. <\/p>\n
So what happens when the person fulfilling this role suddenly loses authorization to work?<\/p>\n
For a lawyer-turned-certified nursing assistant who fled Haiti after members of a criminal group attacked her home in 2022, that question is no longer hypothetical. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey stole everything from us and raped me,\u201d the Haitian woman, a Temporary Protected Status designee, told Human Rights Watch<\/a> in an interview. \u201cI had no choice but to leave the neighborhood, but I knew that wherever I went, it could happen to me again.\u201d<\/p>\n Haiti\u2019s Temporary Protected Status<\/a> designation, also known as TPS, dates back to the catastrophic 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the country on January 12, 2010, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of people and devastating much of the country\u2019s infrastructure. Nine days later, the Obama administration designated Haiti for TPS, allowing eligible Haitians already living in the United States to temporarily remain in the country and obtain authorization to work because conditions made returning safely to Haiti difficult. <\/p>\n The designation was subsequently extended and, in 2011, expanded to cover additional Haitians who had arrived in the United States as Haiti struggled to recover. Over the years, TPS for Haiti has been extended, terminated, restored and redesignated by successive administrations as Haiti has confronted natural disasters, political instability, economic turmoil and, more recently, escalating gang violence. <\/p>\n Under international human rights law, governments should not return people to places where they face serious risks to their lives, freedom, or physical integrity. However, the Trump administration\u2019s move to deport Haitians to Haiti would mean returning them to one of the world\u2019s most severe human rights and humanitarian crises.<\/p>\n The consequences won\u2019t be felt by Haitian workers alone. In Florida, where Haitian immigrants make up an important part of the healthcare workforce, nursing homes and home-care providers are warning that losing these workers could deepen an existing labor shortage and disrupt care for elderly and disabled Americans.<\/p>\n Put more simply: Washington may be making an immigration decision, but nursing homes, healthcare workers and the patients who depend on them could be left dealing with the consequences.<\/p>\n \u201cThe loss of this significant part of the workforce means that people with disabilities [and] older folks are going to lose people that they rely on for some of their most basic functions, whether it\u2019s bathing, helping feed themselves, or even helping take their medicines,\u201d said Dr. Giridhar Mallya, a senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.<\/p>\n NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JULY 10: People hold signs during a press conference on the end of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) at the 199SEIU Headquarters on July 10, 2026 in New York City. Healthcare employers, frontline workers, and patient advocates held a press conference on the upcoming end of TPS for thousands of Haitian and Syrian nationals, after last month’s Supreme Court ruling siding with the Trump administration in Mullin v. Doe allowing it to move forward in terminating TPS. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n Mallya argues that the potential loss of Haitian workers comes at a particularly difficult moment for the nation\u2019s long-term care system. <\/p>\n \u201cI think that the healthcare industry is somewhat paralyzed,\u201d Mallya said. \u201cThey don\u2019t know how they\u2019re going to be able to fill these positions, which were already hard to fill prior to this decision.\u201d<\/p>\n