An estimated 350,000 Haitians could soon lose their legal status across the country. It could have a major impact on healthcare in places like Massachusetts. Many recent arrivals in Massachusetts have worked in low-wage long-term care jobs.
Now they are facing deportation.
“I can't keep up with my job, so I don't know what I'm going to do right now,” said Jack, a certified nurse assistant who recently learned that if he can't fix his immigration status by February, he'll lose his job at Boston Hospital.
“I have an apartment to pay, I have a car loan and I have a family in Haiti,” he said.
We agreed to call Jack by his nickname, as he was afraid of being targeted by ice.
His family is in the United States under a program called Temporary Protected Status. The Trump administration is ending it for the Haitians. Now they need to decide whether to voluntarily return to Haiti, or to work under the table.
Jack works in the artificial ward, cleaning the pots in his bed and photographing vital signs. He is one of Massachusetts' aides to approximately 50,000 certified nurses, many of whom have legal status that could expire soon.
“It was immigrants who did this job, most of them from Haiti,” he said, presuming that half of his colleagues were not documented at the expiration of temporary protected status.
TPS is for those who are unable to return to their country due to political or environmental catastrophes. Seventeen countries are on the list and have TPSs just over a million. The White House has eliminated TPS in countries including Haiti and Venezuela.
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a doctor and health policy researcher at Hunter College in New York, said the healthcare industry could face a much greater threat due to President Trump's promise to undertake a massive deportation. She said she is a nursing home and other long-term caregiver, particularly at risk.
“We can't subtract the majority of nursing aides from nursing homes, but we still have the quality care we need to keep elders and people with disabilities comfortable and safe,” she said.
Woolhandler recently wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association that over a million non-citizens are currently working in healthcare. She said immigration crackdowns cannot come at a worse time for an industry with existing staffing shortages.
“Half of the country's nursing homes report that they had to stop acknowledging people because they didn't have the personnel to take care of them,” Woolhandler said.
People travel from all over the world with medical care in Boston, and geriatricians here are well aware of the needs of foreign workers. Dr. Asif Merchant is the medical director of five nursing homes in the area. He said hospice and home health providers also depend on immigrants.
“And all of a sudden, most of it just evaporates,” the merchant said.
Several lawsuits across the country aim to stop the White House from termination of TPS and similar programs. However, the merchant said his facility already saw people leaving voluntarily – some aim to lose up to 20% of the staff.
“There are plenty of nursing homes already at very thin margins, which could lead to additional closures of nursing homes,” he said.
Besides the workers themselves, merchants said it could be the patients who pay the ultimate price.
