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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump's Immigration Crackdown Hits Senior Care Work Force
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/us/politics/immigration-senior-caregivers.htmlhttps://archive.ph/cUnRY
Trumps Immigration Crackdown Hits Senior Care Work Force
Nursing homes and home care agencies have lost workers as the Trump administration has moved to end deportation protections for migrants with temporary legal status.
By Madeleine Ngo
July 18, 2025
President Trumps immigration crackdown is beginning to strain the long-term care work force, raising concerns about how the effects could ripple across the nations senior population.
Providers that operate nursing homes and home care agencies say they have lost staff members as the Trump administration has moved to end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants with temporary legal status. Republican critics of those programs say that they have allowed migrants to stay longer than intended, and that ending them restores integrity in the countrys immigration system.
But the long-term care industry already faces persistent challenges in recruiting workers. Providers say the reduction in staff could threaten the quality of services they are able to offer to the nations senior population. Some said they would have to raise wages to attract more workers to fill positions, and they were set to pass on cost increases to people receiving care.
The issue underscores the critical role that foreign-born workers play in the long-term care industry. Immigrants make up about 28 percent of the work force directly providing that care, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data from KFF, a health policy research group. In comparison, foreign-born workers account for about 19 percent of the entire U.S. civilian labor force.
Katie Smith Sloan, the president of LeadingAge, an association representing nonprofit aging services providers, said the Trump administrations immigration policies were already starting to disrupt facilities across the country as providers moved to terminate some caregivers in recent weeks. She said some employees had stopped showing up at work out of fear for themselves and their families.
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Trump's Immigration Crackdown Hits Senior Care Work Force (Original Post)
dalton99a
Saturday
OP
bucolic_frolic
(51,516 posts)1. Yes the labor force is impacted
Lower level, entry level jobs are emptying out. I would suspect too, a lot of these jobs are early morning, or all night - hours and shifts ordinary Americans won't want to work.
Some polling outfit should do some surveys to generate some numbers on how difficult it will be to fill these jobs with Medicaid, older, elder, retired Americans.
David__77
(24,310 posts)2. While this strains staffing, I imagine it may lead to higher wages.
I say that not to defend it, just to point out another aspect of the situation. Immigrants are under attack, and the owners of these facilities, meat packing, lodging, and other enterprises will start to scream because they rely on their ability to get a labor force with an exceptionally low wage.
republianmushroom
(20,705 posts)3. Crackdown is OK, because Granny is going t be pick tomatoes shortly.
because Granny is going t be pick tomatoes shortly.