On June 25, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed President Donald Trump and his administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, paving the way to strip them of their legal immigration status.
President Trump is pushing for an end to TPS for several groups as part of his efforts to limit immigration to the United States.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
But lawmakers from both parties argue that stripping Haitians of TPS status could spark a care crisis, given the presence of Haitians in key industries such as health care.
“About one-third of Haiti’s more than 350,000 legal TPS holders work in our nation’s health care system. Immediately suspending TPS would create a crisis for hospitals, nursing homes, and the[intellectually disabled]community,” Republican Congressman Mike Lawler wrote on social media platform X.
Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley echoed similar sentiments in a statement.
“Seniors will lose their caregivers at a time when they are already facing a care crisis, and they will no longer be able to age in their communities with much-needed support,” she wrote.
The Temporary Protected Status Program allows nationals of countries affected by crises, such as natural disasters or armed conflict, to reside in the United States for up to 18 months. The federal government will renew the designation before President Trump takes office for a second term in 2025, effectively making it permanent.
Lawler’s estimate of the number of Haitians in TPS working in the U.S. health care system is within the range shown by the data.
The Trump administration’s decision and the Supreme Court’s ruling affect approximately 330,000 Haitians whose TPS-related work permits expire on July 10. They face deportation unless they qualify for another status. The ruling also applies to Syrians and Venezuelans.
Approximately 158,000 Haitians in Florida have TPS, the majority of whom live in South Florida. The Sunshine State has the largest population of TPS recipients in the United States, approximately 404,000. More than half are from Venezuela and about a third from Haiti, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
With an aging population and an existing caregiver shortage, medical experts say ending TPS for Haitians will have a major impact on the U.S. health care industry.
According to the Boston Globe, about 13,000 of Haiti’s 330,000 TPS holders work as nursing assistants every day, caring for 65,000 patients. An additional 8,000 Haitian caregivers are serving 12,000 children and seniors, according to Americans for Immigrant Justice, a Miami-based nonprofit law firm that provides free representation to low-income immigrants.
Experts said the exodus of TPS health care workers will be felt most acutely in New York, Massachusetts and Florida.
Florida, with its large elderly and immigrant population, is expected to be particularly hard hit.
David Grabowski, a professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School, said the decision “will have a major impact on nursing homes, assisted living facilities and home care agencies.”
What would happen if most Haitians with TPS were deported?
Medical researchers say deporting Haitians who have obtained temporary protected status will put further pressure on a strained system.
Immigrants with TPS are more likely to work in health care, with one study in 2025 finding that recipients made up 15 percent of all non-national health care workers. (TPS recipients make up approximately 2.1 percent of the total immigrant population.)
Immigrants make up the majority of direct care workers, including home health aides, personal care aides, and nursing assistants.
There is already a national shortage of home health aides, personal care aides, nursing assistants, and other long-term care and elder care workers, but the United States will need even more in the future. The U.S. population aged 65 and older is expected to grow from 58 million to 82 million by 2050, a 42% increase.
Nearly half of U.S. nursing homes report limiting admissions due to staffing shortages, and 19% recently met minimum staffing levels established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In 2023, nearly two-thirds of U.S. hospitals were operating below capacity due to a shortage of nurses and other employees.
“The people who run nursing homes, chronic care hospitals, home care agencies are all saying this is a crisis,” said Dr. Steffy Woolhandler, distinguished professor of public health at Hunter College of the City University of New York. “There has long been and is a shortage of people willing to work in direct care as nurse aides, so of course if the United States were to deport them all, that would only make the situation worse.”
“The long-term care industry was already facing a talent shortage before these immigration policy changes, and I think it’s accurate to say that this will make the situation even worse,” said Drishti Pillai, director of immigration health policy at the research nonprofit KFF.
Why do so many Haitians in TPS work in caregiving?
Health professionals cited job availability, an easier certification process compared to other health professions, and experience caring for family members as reasons for the high number of TPS holders working in direct care.
“We don’t have enough native-born workers to do all the care work,” said Grabowski, the health policy professor.
Experts say these jobs typically have low hurdles to obtaining a license and don’t require English proficiency. Refugee settlement organizations often recommend this job to immigrants for these reasons.
Priya Chidambaram, KFF’s senior policy manager for Medicaid and uninsured programs, said the positions are “very difficult to fill” because they are physically and mentally demanding, pay low and offer little or no benefits.
Some Haitians have experience caring for sick family members at home due to the lack of nursing home infrastructure in their home country.
Ultimately, experts said, there will be far more people needing this care than can provide it.
“This was true even before the verdict,” Chidambaram said. “The impact will only get worse in the future.”
