# Immigrant caregivers fear deportation under Trump

Caregiving



**The caregiving industry relies on immigrants. These workers fear deportation under Trump**

Corrections & Clarifications: A study on the nation’s growing elderly population was attributed incorrectly. The authors were James R. Knickman and Emily K. Snell, who wrote for the journal Health Services Research.

A home care worker wakes at 3:30 a.m., showers, and prepares for a more than 10-hour day of attending to her clients.

She cooks. She cleans. She replaces catheter bags. She bathes her clients, checks their blood pressure, and ensures they take their medication. When she wraps up her shift at the home of a disabled U.S. Iraq War veteran at 4:30 p.m., she is off the clock but returns to the home of her first client, a 92-year-old woman with dementia who lives alone, and cooks her dinner.

She earns $18.50 an hour and is provided no health care benefits. She loves her job but worries President Donald Trump’s  and plans for  could threaten her ability to do it.

“Not all immigrants who come here cause harm. Most are here to contribute,” the home care worker told USA TODAY in Spanish through a translator. “It’s sad and disheartening to see how immigrants are being treated.”

She is one of many immigrants living in the country with no clear path to citizenship. She came to the U.S. 23 years ago from El Salvador as a Temporary Protected Status holder after an earthquake devastated her home country. She now faces growing uncertainty as Trump targets others with similar legal but fragile immigration statuses, a focus that could disrupt a caregiver industry that is heavily dependent on foreign-born workers.

In February, the Trump administration said it would end an extension of Temporary Protected Status for more than  and nearly  immigrants this year. The president signed an executive order in January arguing the U.S. should  if they are the children of immigrants without legal authorization.  the order in February.

And within days of Trump taking office, the White House  “the largest massive deportation operation in history” was already well underway.

"Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history," Trump said in his  March 4.

Julia is one of many immigrants, with legal status and without, on which the U.S. caregiver industry depends. Foreign-born workers help address the growing need for care given the nation’s aging baby boomer population.

In 2020, 55.8 million people in the U.S. were 65 and over, . A  estimates that number will reach nearly 70 million by 2030.

A  estimates the demand for home health aides would rise 35%, the demand for personal care aides would rise 38%, and the demand for nursing assistants would rise 41% from 2022 to 2037.

Without immigrants, the already high cost of caring for seniors, children and people with disabilities will skyrocket, said April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 1 million long-term care workers in the U.S. and Canada.

"Trump’s immigration policies could make a bad situation dramatically worse," said Donna Norton, executive vice president for MomsRising, a family advocacy nonprofit. "Immigrants are the backbone of our community and care infrastructure."

Although immigrants comprise 17% of the total American labor force, they make up 31% of the home care workforce, 21% of the residential care aide and nursing assistant workforce, and 30% of the nursing home housekeeping and maintenance workforce, according to a  from Leading Age, an organization representing nonprofit aging services providers.

A much smaller percentage of these workers are believed to be without legal status. American Immigration Council research director Nan Wu told USA TODAY the nonprofit estimates that 4.2% of nursing assistants and 6.4% of home health aides across the country are undocumented, based on census data.

[](https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/nation/2025/01/27/trump-immigration-crackdown-photos/77980788007/)

**What happens to the caregiver industry without immigrants?**

Even without mass deportations, Brookings Economic Studies program director Ben Harris said, an increased law enforcement presence at the border, immigrants leaving the country at higher rates, and actions like shutting down the  could be enough to have a “cooling effect” on the amount of migrants available to work in tight labor markets.

Those factors, combined with an existing worker shortage and high turnover rate in the caregiving industry, could quickly affect the cost and quality of care in the U.S.

Harris pointed out nursing and residential care facilities lost 400,000 employees during the pandemic.   increased immigration is linked to higher nursing home staffing levels and improved patient outcomes.

“When some people are cheering this really aggressive anti-immigration policies, they may not be thinking that they mean a higher chance that their parent or grandparent might have a problematic fall,” Harris told USA TODAY. “This is not an obvious connection, but it’s established by the research.”

 Harris highlighted found the increasing cost of care in the U.S. is partly fueled by nursing home staffing shortages leading to greater reliance on temporary workers from staffing agencies that charge hourly rates 50% to 60% higher than what is paid to directly employed nurses.

“If there are not folks here to take care of our loved ones, that means folks are going to have to choose: Do I go to work? Do I stay home with my aging parents?” Verrett said. “Families are going to have to make real tough choices at a time where it’s already so hard for families to make ends meet.”

[](https://bit.ly/3Xa9Dlq)



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