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This week, the U.S. Supreme Court gave the Trump administration a green light to extend its immigration crackdown to hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti and Syria who've been living in the U.S. legally for years. The White House hailed the decision as a correction long overdue. But for employers who depend on those foreign-born workers to staff nursing homes, meatpacking plants and factories, it could be a problem, as NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: The high court's conservative majority gave the Trump administration wide latitude to cancel what's known as temporary protected status, which has allowed more than 300,000 Haitians to live and work in the U.S. since a deadly earthquake struck the island in 2010. A White House spokeswoman called the decision a tremendous win and stressed the status was always meant to be temporary, not a path to permanent residency. But over the years, Haitians have become an important part of the U.S. workforce. About 30% work in nursing homes as home health aides or delivering other kinds of care to seniors. Katie Smith Sloan, who represents thousands of senior care organizations, says it will leave a huge hole if those workers are forced to leave the country.
KATIE SMITH SLOAN: They are the backbone. And they are wonderful, wonderful workers that have developed deep, deep relationships with residents. It's just horrifying to think about what the world is going to be like for our members and for older adults and families without these workers.
HORSLEY: Smith Sloan says there have never been enough native-born workers willing to provide that kind of care, at least not at the existing wages. If foreign-born workers are sent away, she says more of the caregiving responsibility will fall to family members or, in some cases, more costly hospital stays.
SMITH SLOAN: We'll see nursing homes closing beds, maybe closing down wings, maybe closing altogether, that just won't be able to accommodate as many people as they could in the past if they don't have a workforce.
HORSLEY: Haitian immigrants have also been filling key jobs in hotels, food-processing businesses and manufacturing plants. Jamie McGregor, who runs a factory in Springfield, Ohio, told NPR two years ago Haitians made up more than 10% of his workforce.
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JAMIE MCGREGOR: The fact of the matter is, without the Haitian associates that we have, we had trouble filling these positions.
HORSLEY: While the case before the high court involved people from Haiti and Syria, the effects of the decision are much broader. Temporary protected status has been granted to some 1.3 million immigrants from more than a dozen countries, including Venezuela and Ukraine. The Trump administration has tried to end all those protections as they come up for renewal. That consistency is one reason the court's majority rejected a claim that the White House approach is racist and therefore unconstitutional. Racist or not, Rebecca Shi, who heads a coalition of American employers that rely on immigrant labor, says the administration's move is very destabilizing.
REBECCA SHI: These are vetted immigrants who arrive through legal pathways and hold valid, legal work authorizations, many for over a decade. Now, overnight, they faced forced removal from their communities, from the workforce. And these are ties that they have spent years building.
HORSLEY: The crackdown on temporary protected status is just one part of the administration's broader effort to sharply curtail both legal and illegal immigration. The White House argues that'll free up more jobs for U.S.-born workers. But so far, evidence points in the opposite direction. Two separate studies by economists at the Brookings Institution and the University of Colorado have found that aggressive efforts to deport immigrants often result in American workers losing jobs as well. If a short-staffed nursing home has to scale back or shut down, for example, some U.S. workers may also be laid off. Other businesses may suffer collateral damage when their immigrant customers are deported or too scared to go out shopping. Aaron Sojourner, who's with the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, says the administration's efforts could backfire.
AARON SOJOURNER: Bulldozing paths by which generations of people have contributed to the American dream - it's very self-defeating.
HORSLEY: The House voted this spring to extend temporary protected status for Haitians past the end of President Trump's term in office. That measure has not gotten a vote in the Senate, though, and if it were to pass, Trump has threatened to veto.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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