Mass Deportation Affects Health Care

What happens when nursing homes that are already severely understaffed are forced to lose even more staff? Americans are soon to find out, as the Trump administration continues to end the legal status of immigrants working in health care fields and deport them from the United States.

Nursing facilities are known to rely heavily on legal immigrant labor to fill large vacancies. Last year, it was reported that 22% of nursing assistants were born outside of the U.S., along with 28% of personal care aids, and 30% of nursing home housekeeping and maintenance employees. Over 41% of home health aids in the U.S. are foreign-born as well.

Therefore, as the current administration works to deport as many immigrants as possible, Americans will need to reevaluate what’s more important to them: less foreign-born individuals in the U.S. or higher quality health care services.

However, this is not to say that nursing facilities are currently operating under a high standard of care. Most facilities’ reliance on immigrant labor is a sign of too-low wages and many continue to be understaffed despite their high employment of immigrants. This understaffing and poor treatment of employees leads to burnout among staff and poor-quality care available for vulnerable populations of Americans.

So, while the Trump administration certainly has not caused the issue of low-quality care and consistent understaffing in health care, their aggressive stance on immigration will undoubtedly exacerbate this issue for the entire nation.