Col#288-7/4/26
AN IMPENDING HEALTHCARE CRISIS
By
Richard Davis
The world of direct-care health care workers such as nursing home aides, home health aides and a variety of private caregivers is about to come crashing down. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Trump administration can end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program.
TPS was created in 1990 to provide relief from deportation and work authorization to foreign nationals in the U.S. According to Wikipedia the protected population are people, “ who are nationals of a country experiencing ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or any temporary or extraordinary conditions that would prevent the foreign national from returning safely. Temporary protected status allows beneficiaries to live and, in some cases, work in the United States for a limited amount of time. In March 2025, approximately 1,297,635 people had TPS.”
One of those countries is Haiti where violence is a way of life and where gangs rule the streets. Just living in the country is a daily struggle to keep alive. That fact has not changed. As of 2025, 500,000 Haitians were protected by TPS. Of that group it is estimated that 112,000 Haitians work in health care.
If you have been in a nursing home or any of a variety of extended care facilities recently it is clear that people of color make up a majority of the lowest paid health care workers. Haitians, in particular, provide a big percentage of direct care to patients.
According to a recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Haitians comprise 28% of the long-term care work force in this country. Haitian immigrants contribute $6 billion a year to the U.S. economy.
Nursing homes and other health care providers are already struggling to maintain a workforce that can provide safe care at an acceptable level of quality. Their profit margins are small or often non-existent. They have been hanging on to a cliff by their fingernails for years and the ending of TPS will certainly push them over.
The Trump bullies in Homeland Security and ICE and other agencies are already starting to ramp up their deportation efforts. The TPS ended on June 25 with the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling and there has been a tremendous increase in the number of people being rounded up for deportation.
The deportees will face a death sentence when they return to their homeland. They will not have jobs or homes and they will probably become targets of the death squad gangs. The Supreme Court ruled that Trump did not want to end the program because of racial animus despite the presentation by Justice Kagan quoting Trump making racially prejudicial remarks about Haitians. This court now has blood on their hands.
Statistics indicate that 20% of Americans will need long term care for at least five years. It will not be long before these people will be on their own as nursing homes go out of business and only the very wealthy among us will be able to hire private caregivers from a dwindling pool of workers.
Nursing homes cannot magically come up with millions of dollars to stay open and pay higher wages to attract American-born workers. As nursing homes close and deportations increase, this country will experience a crisis in long-term care that has never happened before. People who need care will be told they have no options but to go home and fend for themselves. This act of TPS termination is one of the most inhumane policies ever enacted by the U.S.
The Supreme Court and Trump should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Nothing will change as the headlines become grimmer and grimmer.
