By Maria Tsvetkova
NEW CITY, New York, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Richie Rosen, 43, was born with a rare genetic condition called Williams syndrome. His hands are weak and unreliable. He longs for human connection but gets anxious in social situations and is easily upset.
For four years, a Haitian caregiver named Tassy helped him navigate day-to-day life at a group home for developmentally disabled men in upstate New York – cooking for him, driving him around and making difficult chores more manageable.
But
on July 27, Jawonio, the nonprofit that runs the facility, terminated Tassy’s contract after the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and the work authorization that came with it.
"I miss him a lot," Rosen told Reuters last week, sitting in his room at the home in Rockland County, a leafy suburb north of New York City. “I miss him just saying hi to me all the time."
Around 21,000 of the 330,000 Haitians in the United States under TPS worked as caregivers and nursing assistants as of last year, serving around 77,000 patients, according to an analysis of U.S. census data by Philip Connor, a research fellow at Princeton University.
Their abrupt removal from the healthcare industry has placed additional strain on a system already struggling to meet the needs of the fast-aging U.S. population. It also came as a shock to families that relied on them.
Richie's mother, Sharon Rosen, said Tassy was “like family” to her son, who never got the chance to say goodbye to his longtime aide.
“My heart is breaking for him and for my son,” she said.
Reuters was unable to reach Tassy for this story and is using only his first name due to his vulnerable legal status.
Jawonio was forced to lay off nearly two dozen Haitians last month, totaling 7% of its staff. Most of those affected provided round-the-clock care for disabled patients for around $20 per hour, just a few dollars above New York’s minimum wage.
"These are among the most difficult positions to fill," Jawonio's CEO, Randi Rios-Castro, told Reuters in response to emailed questions.
“This has never been just an immigration issue,” she wrote of the decision to end TPS. “It is a healthcare workforce issue for us and our country.”
‘PATIENT CARE SUFFERS’
The United States granted humanitarian protection to Haitians following a devastating earthquake in 2010.
The Trump administration cited improving conditions in Haiti as a reason for ending the program, though the country remains among the most unstable in the Western Hemisphere.
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.
FAMILY FILLS IN
At the group home in Rockland County, staffers are picking up extra shifts after the departures of Tassy and Marc, another former Haitian caregiver.
For the Rosens, the loss feels personal.
Sharon, 77, said she told her son that Tassy might have to leave because of new immigration policies. But she didn’t expect it to happen overnight.
Now, she and her 81-year-old husband are trying to help fill the gaps, including driving him to his job at a nearby grocery store.
Rosen, asked to recall the moment he learned his aide was gone, didn’t want to discuss it.
"I hope one day I can see him again," he said.
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Jesse Mesner-Hage and Aurora Ellis)
