Home-care agencies close and restaurants scale back operations
Jewish Community Services of South Florida is leaning on remaining staff to work more hours and paying significant overtime after letting go of 18 Haitian TPS holders who had worked as home health aides at the organization for more than 20 years. Chief Executive Miriam Singer said the agency is racing to fill those positions in an industry that already struggles with persistent labor shortages. “For a nonprofit agency, that is a tall order,” Singer said.
The nonprofit provides home care for about 400 Holocaust survivors, Singer said, and she is already worried about another looming deadline: the expiration of TPS for Ukrainian immigrants, whom the organization also employs, in October.
Jewish Community Services is one of a growing list of South Florida employers absorbing the impact of the Trump administration’s July 27 termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security’s decision stripped employment authorization from the program’s Haitian beneficiaries, and the effects have rippled through home-care agencies, nursing homes, restaurants, hotels and retailers across the region. No state in the U.S. has more Haitian TPS holders than Florida. Of the roughly 350,000 Haitian TPS holders in the country, nearly half live in the state.
The administration ended TPS for Haiti along with the program for 12 other countries, arguing that prior administrations had misused TPS by repeatedly extending its protections beyond their intended scope. The termination triggered a wave of lawsuits by advocates for TPS beneficiaries. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could end TPS status for Haitian and Syrian nationals; there are significantly fewer Syrian TPS holders in the U.S. — about 6,000 — than Haitian ones.
An analysis by three immigrant-rights groups — FWD.us, Haitian Bridge Alliance and UndocuBlack Network — found that about 93,000 Haitian TPS holders were in Florida’s workforce before the change. That includes an estimated 16,000 cooks and servers, 8,000 stockers and packers, and 4,000 nursing assistants.
Haitians make up 28% of Florida’s immigrant direct-care workforce, the largest group by country of origin, according to PHI, a policy research and advocacy group. Moorings Park Communities, a luxury senior-living development in Naples, lost seven TPS holders whose work authorizations recently expired, said Chief Executive Daniel Lavender. That was on top of 17 others who left last year after the termination was first announced.
Administrators have been able to adjust to those departures, including reinstating one worker who was able to regain employment authorization, Lavender said. But for residents who had developed close relationships with the affected caregivers, he said, “it’s a personal, devastating loss.”
Denise Bellville, executive director of the Home Care Association of Florida, said two home-care agencies in Miami-Dade and Broward counties shut down entirely after each lost more than 80 Haitian TPS holders. The employment losses extend beyond healthcare: hotels, retailers, airport contractors and small businesses are also grappling with new staffing shortages.
In North Miami, Sabine Dulcio, a Haitian immigrant who runs an event-planning company, let go of 15 employees in the past two weeks — nearly half of her crew, who handled everything from event preparation to floral design. “We’re drowning,” Dulcio said. “This is the largest turnover we’ve ever had.” She said she plans to reach out to staffing agencies and use platforms like Indeed to recruit new workers.
In Key West, Bobby Kuchinsky, general manager of Half Shell Raw Bar, terminated six employees, including prep cooks and bussers, who had TPS protections. One had worked in the restaurant for more than a decade and was the second person ever to make Kuchinsky’s conch chowder and fritter batter for customers. “It’s impossible to fill those positions because everybody in Key West and South Florida are looking for those employees right now,” Kuchinsky said. He added that he now has “servers, bartenders and oyster shuckers in the kitchen washing dishes.”
Bill Lay, the owner of five restaurants in Key West, said he supports legal pathways for foreign workers but believes current immigration laws should be respected. “The people who do break the law, it’s a one-strike-you’re-out rule,” Lay said. He has encouraged all of the Haitian workers at his restaurants to obtain legal working papers. “These people aren’t here because they want to be bad,” he said. “They’re here because they want opportunity.”
Lindsay Ray, executive director of Amigos Center, which provides immigration legal services in Fort Myers, said supporters of maintaining TPS protections argue that beneficiaries have become integral parts of the community and economy. By terminating that status, Ray said, “we are losing a huge, essential part of our workforce.”
Opponents of TPS take a different view. Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lowering immigration levels, said TPS holders make up a fraction of the overall labor force — a loss the economy can absorb — and that any difficulties in replacing them could have the benefit of raising wages. “Their departure creates real opportunities for less-educated, American-born workers,” Camarota said.
For many Haitian TPS holders in Florida, the policy change has brought personal upheaval along with the loss of employment. Farah Larrieux, who received TPS protections in 2010 and lives in South Florida, lost her hospitality job last month when her work authorization expired and has applied for asylum. She said she barely leaves her home and has largely suspended her other work as a communications strategist. “I’m very busy strategizing,” Larrieux said. “I know the fight will not be easy.”
The end of TPS for Haitians, along with other immigration policy changes by the Trump administration, has hit employers in other U.S. states. Katie Smith Sloan, chief executive of LeadingAge, which represents aging-services providers, said nursing beds are being taken offline and some home-care agencies are halting admissions in states including Massachusetts, Ohio and Georgia.
At ArchCare, the healthcare arm of the Archdiocese of New York that operates nursing homes and other programs, administrators are rushing to fill 20 positions — including certified nursing assistants and home health aides — vacated by the TPS termination, said Chief Operating Officer Jason Hutchens. The organization has tripled sign-on bonuses to $6,000 and enlisted employment agencies that charge a premium to provide personnel, he said. “There’s no way to recoup that,” Hutchens said. “But we have no choice, in order to take care of the patients.”