By Arian Campo-Flores and Sanai Hadiya Rashid | The Wall Street Journal | August 17, 2026

Some home-care agencies have shut down since July 27, when the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitian immigrants. The administration argued the program had become permanent, in contrast with its intended purpose.

Nursing homes are scrambling to fill vacant positions and restaurants are scaling back operating hours. Hotels, retailers, airport contractors and small businesses are also grappling with new staffing shortages.

As a result of the change, which terminated employment authorization for TPS beneficiaries, Jewish Community Services of South Florida had to let go of 18 Haitian TPS holders, some of whom had worked as home health aides at the organization for more than 20 years, said Chief Executive Miriam Singer. The organization provides home care for about 400 Holocaust survivors, she said.

The organization is racing to fill those positions — a steep challenge in an industry that struggles with persistent labor shortages. Meanwhile, it is leaning on remaining staff to work more hours to make up the shortfall — and paying significant overtime as a result.

“For a nonprofit agency, that is a tall order,” Singer said. She is worried about another looming deadline: the expiration of TPS for Ukrainian immigrants, whom the organization also employs, in October.

No other 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.

About 93,000 of them are in Florida’s workforce, according to an analysis by three immigrant-rights groups — FWD.us, Haitian Bridge Alliance and UndocuBlack Network. That includes an estimated 16,000 cooks and servers, 8,000 stockers and packers and 4,000 nursing assistants.

For decades, the Department of Homeland Security has granted TPS designations for foreign-born people who can’t return to their home countries because of unsafe conditions such as armed conflict or natural disasters. When President Trump returned to office last year, his administration moved to terminate TPS status for 13 countries, including Haiti, arguing that prior administrations had misused the program by repeatedly extending its protections.

That triggered a wave of lawsuits by advocates for TPS beneficiaries. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could end TPS status for Haitian and Syrian nationals. There are significantly fewer Syrian TPS holders in the U.S. than Haitian ones, numbering around 6,000.

Supporters of maintaining TPS protections say beneficiaries have become integral parts of the community and economy and provide crucial services. By terminating that status, “we are losing a huge, essential part of our workforce,” said Lindsay Ray, executive director of Amigos Center, which provides immigration legal services in Fort Myers, Fla.

Opponents of TPS say that people with the status 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,” said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lowering immigration levels.

In Florida, Haitians make up 28% of the state’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, Fla., lost seven TPS holders whose work authorizations recently expired, said Chief Executive Daniel Lavender.

Workers serving lunch at a restaurant at Moorings Park, which has seen a number of staff departures over the loss of protected status.

That is on top of 17 others who left last year as a result of the looming termination.

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 developed close relationships with the affected caregivers, he said, “it’s a personal, devastating loss.”

In Miami-Dade and Broward counties, two home-care agencies shut down after each lost more than 80 Haitian TPS holders, said Denise Bellville, executive director of the Home Care Association of Florida.

Other types of employers are reeling as well. Sabine Dulcio, a Haitian immigrant, runs an event-planning company in North Miami with a mostly Haitian staff. In the past two weeks, she let go of 15 employees, or 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, Fla., Bobby Kuchinsky, general manager of Half Shell Raw Bar, terminated six of his employees, including prep cooks and bussers, who had TPS protections. One of them 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. Now, he added, he has “servers, bartenders and oyster shuckers in the kitchen washing dishes.”

Bill Lay, the owner of five restaurants in Key West, 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,” said Lay. 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.”

In Florida, many Haitians live with uncertainty over what comes next.

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 barely leaves her home and has largely suspended her other job as a communications strategist. Instead, she is focused on organizing other former TPS holders intent on finding a way to stay in the U.S.

“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, including Massachusetts, Ohio and Georgia. In the healthcare sector, nursing beds are being taken offline and some home-care agencies are halting admissions, said

At ArchCare, a 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 as a result of 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.”