Haiti has not held elections since 2016; its last president was assassinated in 2021. Gang violence has convulsed the capital. 1.4 million people are displaced from their homes, the U.N. said last year, and about 6 in 10 live in poverty.
No longer able to legally work in the United States, former TPS holders can now return to Haiti voluntarily -- or try to stay in the U.S. and risk arrest and deportation.
New York state had the second-largest number of Haitian TPS holders after Florida, one of the country's most popular retirement destinations.
Weeks before TPS was set to expire, Emmett Reed, CEO of the Florida Health Care Association, sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin urging him to consider an exemption for long-term caregivers.
"Florida is home to one of the nation's largest and fastest-growing older adult populations, and demand for long-term care services continues to increase each year," Reed wrote in the letter.
The loss of Haitian workers risked “causing a ripple effect that could overwhelm our local hospitals and the entire healthcare system,” he continued.
Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nurses Association, moved to the U.S. from Haiti as a child and works at a hospital in Brooklyn. At an August 5 vigil held outside Maimonides Medical Center to protest staffing shortages, she compared the impact of ending TPS to the workforce deficit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When healthcare workers live in fear of going to work, patient care suffers,” Hagans told the crowd.
Responding to questions from Reuters, the Department of Homeland Security said it was “grossly false and lazy” to assert the healthcare industry relied on immigrants, adding that “for too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program.”
Jawonio has appealed for help to Republican Congressman Mark Lawler, who represents Rockland County in New York's lower Hudson Valley, home to an estimated 11,000 Haitians.
Lawler, facing a competitive race in November’s midterm elections, has opposed stripping Haitians of protections despite being a backer of Trump and his hardline immigration agenda.
His office said he is working with Jawonio and other local groups to find alternative legal statuses for Haitian TPS holders.
"Losing these experienced workers creates real staffing challenges for providers who were already facing shortages and risks disrupting care for vulnerable residents,” Lawler's spokeswoman Caroline Hunt wrote in an email to Reuters.
XLV•
