Trump Deports Needed Caregivers

Trump’s arbitrary deportation policies continue to target a “vital portion” of long-term care essential workers according to sources. The US Healthcare System employs more than 1 million immigrants, where 70,000 are documented and 38,000 are undocumented, a JAMA research letter says. Trump’s orders regarding deportations threaten the quality of care at long-term care facilities as he is erasing a needed group of workers.

“Deportations could especially compromise long-term care, where immigrants play a large role,” the study authors from several US institutions, including Harvard Medical School, wrote. “The resulting shortages could reverberate through emergency departments and hospitals, leading to the inability to discharge patients and tying up nurses and other staff.”

When study authors segmented immigrant healthcare workers by occupation, research showed that 250,000 were working as documented certified nursing assistants along with the 192,000 who were undocumented. PHI reporting revealed that immigrant workers remain in direct care positions longer than US workers on average.

Trump’s cruel suspension of programs like the US Refugee Admissions Program may worsen the preexisting difficulty of staffing situations for skilled nursing providers. Long-term care experts across the industry are reporting increased uncertainty. Since the Refugee Act passed in 1980, the US has resettled more than 3 million immigrants. Resettled immigrants have had a 68% workforce participation and a 64% employment rate, surpassing the US population at 63% and 60%.

“There’s just a general anxiety about what this could all mean, even if somebody is here legally,” LeadingAge President Katie Smith Sloan told NBC News. “There’s concern about unfair targeting, unfair activity that could just create trauma, even if they don’t ultimately end up being deported, and that’s disruptive to a health care environment.”

Other programs are also being unfairly targeted, like the USRAP. The ramifications will negatively impact a “myriad of industries” that employ tens of thousands of immigrants. The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program is also in the Trump administration’s sights.  During Biden’s final days as president, he extended temporary protected status to approximately 1.1 million immigrants from Venezuela, Ukraine, El Salvador, and Sudan. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem terminated TPS designed for Venezuela.

“The US refugee program has advanced the nation’s standing in the world, saved countless lives, and put millions of impoverished refugees on a path to work, self-sufficiency, and integration,” the study authors wrote. “It has admitted future leaders in science, healthcare, business, the law, government, education, and the arts … Yet the current administration has worked to dismantle this program as part of a broader attack on legal immigration programs.”

It is unclear what the long-term effects of the Trump administration’s plans will be, but some nursing homes are already feeling the pressure. Immigrant reform workers are an “imperative step” to addressing short staffing within the skilled nursing sector.

PHI on Monday wrote that Trump’s immigration policies would “decimate the U.S. immigration system,” just before noting one Texas nursing home’s possibly impending difficulties. The Dallas skilled nursing provider told the New York Times that about 80% of direct care workers he hires are immigrants.

“We don’t go out looking for people who are immigrants. We go out hiring people who answer the call — and they are all immigrants,” he said.

Senior Vice President of LeadingAge Wisconsin Robin Wolzenburg told NBC News that Wisconsin nursing homes usually work with job placement programs to hire immigrant workers to fill these staffing gaps. Now, with these programs on pause and no addition of refugees, job placements for nursing homes have also been suspended, which is “painting a stark picture” of the future for immigrant workers in long-term care.