TPS Protections Are Ending. Direct Care Workers and Families Will Pay the Price

This week, hundreds of thousands of people, primarily Haitians, lost Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and the work authorization that comes with it. Protections for people from other countries are also at risk, leaving workers and their families facing the loss of their jobs, the threat of deportation, and possible return to countries experiencing violence, instability, or humanitarian crisis.

The consequences will reverberate across our long-term care system. Providers who already face staffing shortages are preparing to lose direct care workers and other essential staff. One Massachusetts long-term care organization, for example, expects to lose 40 Haitian employees with TPS, after other immigration policy changes had already cost the organization dozens of immigrant workers.

Immigrants are a cornerstone of the direct care workforce. They represent 28 percent of direct care workers nationwide, and more than half of the workforce in some states and communities. Alongside U.S.-born workers, they provide the hands-on support that millions of older adults and people with disabilities rely on every day. Their contributions strengthen care quality and workforce stability.

Ending TPS will push experienced workers out of their jobs, shrink the pipeline of future workers, and intensify shortages in a workforce that is already struggling to meet rapidly growing demand. PHI projects nearly 800,000 new direct care jobs in the decade ahead, even as fewer U.S.-born workers enter the labor force. Policies that remove immigrant workers from direct care are fundamentally at odds with the realities facing our aging nation, and will ultimately threaten access to care for individuals and their families across the country.

“For more than three decades, this country has relied on temporary immigration protections to meet a permanent need for direct care workers. When those protections are stripped away, the consequences extend from beyond the workers who lose their authorization to remain in the United States. They affect all who need care, their families, and employers and coworkers who must navigate deepening workforce shortages. Too often, immigration policy and long-term care policy have been treated as separate conversations, and for millions of families they have never been separate.”

– Jodi M. Sturgeon, President and CEO of PHI.

PHI calls on Congress to restore protections for TPS holders and create equitable immigration pathways for direct care workers that prioritize permanent status, family unity, employment portability and strong labor protections. These solutions must complement, not replace, long overdue investments in compensation, training, benefits, and career advancement for all direct care workers. Protecting immigrant workers is essential to building the stable, well-supported workforce our long-term care system needs.