NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) — The end of US work authorizations for hundreds of thousands of Haitians is threatening to leave short-staffed nursing homes, hospitals and home-care agencies with even fewer caregivers.
Employment authorization for more than 350,000 people covered by Temporary Protected Status are now set to expire on July 24 after the US on Friday extended the timeline from July 10. The change follows last month’s Supreme Court ruling allowing the Trump administration to end programs for Haitian and Syrian nationals.
The exact timeframe may depend on further action by immigration authorities and courts, but employers have little choice but to begin removing affected workers from their payrolls.
The workers and some of the healthcare facilities that employ them are anxious and confused about what comes next. Roughly 21,000 Haitian TPS holders work as nursing assistants and caregivers, including some 7,000 in New York state, according to the pro-immigration advocacy group FWD.us. That’s led some Republican lawmakers who generally push for tight immigration restrictions to warn that their departure would unleash a healthcare disaster.
The pressure is expected to fall hardest in states with large Haitian communities, including New York, Florida and Massachusetts, where Haitian immigrants have become a critical part of the caregiving and wider workforce.
“Providers already face staffing shortages, and this will only make it harder to hire and retain,” said Sebrina Barrett, president of LeadingAge New York, an association representing nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The change is likely to result in fewer beds available for patients, she added.
The broader Haitian community is also feeling the effects. In the community known as Little Haiti in Brooklyn, the corner of Newkirk and Nostrand avenues was once so stuffed with vendors that it was almost impossible to walk through without bumping into a stand. During a visit earlier this week, there were just two street vendors there selling clothing.
Jeanelie Marcellin, owner of the nearby Buffet Kreol on Nostrand, said Haitians fearful they no longer have legal status are staying home and trying to save money. His sales of lalo, pork griot and boiled plantains among other traditional dishes have dwindled to $2,500 a day from as much as $8,000 last year.
Stephanie Delia, executive director of nonprofit Little Haiti BK, said she’s given legal training to people with TPS status. She tells them how to protect their children in case of separation.
“File the guardianship document,” she said, advising parents to choose carefully who they’d entrust their children with. “There’s no guarantee that you will be removed with your child, even if you’re all undocumented.”
At Winchester Gardens, a senior living facility in the suburb of Maplewood, New Jersey, a small group of residents held a protest July 3, waving signs in the street to demonstrate against the removal of four housekeepers from their scheduled shifts before their authorizations officially expired.
The workers, who are Haitian TPS holders, were reinstated, but residents have been working to raise funds to help them prepare for their eventual departure, according to Chris Hildebrand, an 83-year-old who lives there. An official with the facility said it’s “acted in good-faith compliance with the law” and that any team members who lost wages because of the disruption would be reimbursed.
“The day their status is removed they’re sitting ducks,” said Hildebrand, who hoisted a sign at the protest that read “We Are All Immigrants Except Indigenous People.”
Republican Congressman Mike Lawler has said a sudden cutoff of protected status would trigger a “calamity in our health care system.” He’s called on the Senate to pass a House bill extending protection for Haitians.
Lawler, who represents suburbs north of New York City, and Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, who represents Staten Island, were among a group of 10 Republicans who crossed party lines to pass the House bill in April.
Solange French, a 91-year-old Queens resident who’s cared for by a Haitian home health aide with TPS status, said she doesn’t know who will accompany her to doctor appointments later this month.
“Nobody can replace her,” French said of her aide, who also cooks and shops for her. Under the New York home health aide program, finding a replacement is left up to French and her family, and she and her daughter don’t know where to start.
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