A staffing crisis looms for nursing homes as the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration eliminates work authorization for immigrant employees who care for vulnerable seniors.
At a Miami facility, more than a third of one facility’s workforce — mostly immigrants from Haiti — have already lost their jobs, Notus reported Friday.
“Sincerely, I’m expecting the worst,” Anne-Mercie Blot, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti and certified nursing assistant, told the outlet.
Beginning Feb. 3, more than 330,000 Haitians stand to lose their work permits, triggering a mass exodus across the elder-care sector.
“We don’t know after that how many patients they’re gonna add to the load that we have to take care of,” Blot said.
The Trump administration has systematically dismantled immigrant work programs in addition to escalating deportations.
Rob Liebreich, CEO of Goodwin Living in northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., let go of 14 migrants who had their work permits stripped. Sixty more employees face an uncertain future over their permanent legal status.
“It’s been very challenging to stay current with all the changes that our team members are having to face, and obviously they’re wanting to focus on their work and service to older adults,” he said. “And at the same time, there’s a lot of confusion and a lot of shifts and changes and, unfortunately, ultimately a lot of fear.”
The timing couldn’t be worse. America’s 65-and-older population has exploded, and immigrants comprise about a fifth of nursing assistants and over 40 percent of home-health aides.
“It’s a demographic ticking time bomb,” Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida, told the outlet. “Unless policies change, we’re not going to have as big of a labor supply of this group of immigrants who are providing really needed work.”
Texas care operator Adam Lampert warned that losing 20 percent of his workforce would necessitate price hikes and worse service.
“These are people that are handling your grandmother, your grandfather, your aunt, your uncle; these people have to go through background checks,” he said. “We know where they come from. They have to have their papers.”
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