By the end of its current session in the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on a consequential case determining the fate of 350,000 Haitians living in the United States. Should the court rule in favor of President Donald Trump‘s termination of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Haitian migrants, an already growing caregiving crisis would worsen.
“This is a matter of life and death. This is an essential lifeline,” U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., told theGrio. “The fact remains that whether for a disability or an illness out of nowhere or out of old age, at some point, we will all need to care for someone or to be cared for.”
Pressley, co-chair of the Congressional Haiti Caucus, has been leading the charge on Capitol Hill to protect Haitian migrants from deportations after the Trump administration announced in November 2025 that it ended the program. As theGrio previously reported, the Homeland Security Department said allowing Haitians to live and work in the U.S. was “inconsistent with U.S. national interests.”
Haitian migrants have had TPS status in the U.S. since 2010, when Haiti experienced a deadly and destabilizing earthquake. The Caribbean country continued to face crisis and unrest following a rise in poverty and violence, most notably the political assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse.
Congresswoman Pressley, whose bill to reverse Trump’s repeal of TPS for Haitians was successfully passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last month, noted that the State Department declared Haiti unsafe for American travelers. She told theGrio that deporting 350,000 Haitian nationals back to Haiti “is nothing short of a death sentence.”
Advocates and health care professionals say deporting more than a quarter of a million Haitians will also do grave harm to America, economically and personally. As the health care industry — most especially facilities providing elder care — faces an existing shortage of workers, it stands to be exacerbated should Haitians be forced to leave the U.S. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, 21.3% of Haitian Americans work in health care, including as nurses, nursing aides, and other hospital workers. Others cite that up to 40% of Haitians work in the health care space. Not to mention, Haitians reportedly contribute $6 billion to the U.S. economy.
Robert Liebrich, CEO and president of Goodwin Living, a senior living facility based in Virginia and Washington, D.C., explains to theGrio that America’s older population is growing while birth rates are on the decline in the United States.
“There’s a 70% chance,that they’re going to need long-term care at some point in their life, and they’re going to need people to be able to provide those services to them, certainly from a nursing perspective, a care perspective,” says Liebrich. He continued, “But also it’s the dining staff, it’s the maintenance staff, it’s the environmental services team overall…there’s lots of parts that they’re going to need support in.”
Deporting a significant population of the such an important workforce will result in “care inflation” in which people will “pay more to find care,” Liebrich tells theGrio.
“It’s not a great idea when we’re trying to decrease costs in our country, to be taking away a workforce, a group of people that have shown themselves to be compassionate and interested to serve in this field,” he says.
Athena Jones, a home care worker and member of the labor union, SEIU Virginia 512, said Trump’s termination of TPS for Haitians is “not accidental.”
“It is an attack on communities that that are predominantly Black and brown immigrants who are here to work and make a better life for themselves, but yet this administration is sending a clear message you are not wanted and that you do not belong,” Jones said at press conference hosted by Rep. Pressley on Capitol Hill the day before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case challenging the Trump administration’s order.
She added, “This is just not an attack on immigrants. This is attack on the care system. Caring for our loved ones is a 24 hour job. It is physical, it is emotional, it is emotional and it is sacred, and yet the very people doing this job are being punished and pushed out.”
Liebrich tells theGrio that despite President Trump understanding the “business economics” of the U.S. needing to “compete for a global workforce,” his decision to end TPS for Haitian migrants “sends the wrong message.” He said if the country’s policies are not “welcoming to folks,” immigrant workers are “not going to choose to come our way.”
“That creates not only a today issue, but a long term issue,” says Liebrich.
Rep. Pressley tells theGrio, “This is not a workforce, an essential labor, that can be replaced by AI.”
As stakeholders await the Supreme Court’s ruling, the progressive congresswoman urged the justices and members of the U.S. Senate to do the right thing by reinstating TPS for Haitians.
Noting that Trump’s own Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy acknowledged a U.S. caregiving crisis, Pressley said she and advocates will continue push for policymakers to do what is just and what is so clearly good for the U.S. economy.
