The Supreme Court's decision to permit the Trump administration to terminate temporary protected status for immigrants from Haiti and Syria has triggered widespread panic and economic concerns across the United States. Advocacy groups report being inundated with desperate pleas for assistance as families scramble to navigate their options.
Without intervention from lower courts, approximately 400,000 Haitians and Syrians—roughly one-third of the 1.3 million total TPS holders—face the prospect of deportation within just three months. This leaves them with an agonizing choice: uproot the lives they have built in the U.S., potentially leaving behind American-born children, or bring their families to dangerous home countries where violence and instability reign.
Critical Workforce at Risk
The impact extends far beyond the affected individuals. The National Domestic Workers Alliance warns of severe consequences for the nation's care infrastructure. “The future of immigrants is fundamentally connected to the future of care in our country,” said Haeyoung Yoon, the alliance's vice president of policy and advocacy.
A May report by the NDWA found that at least 740,000 TPS holders are employed in the U.S. workforce, with many concentrated in critical fields such as healthcare, childcare, and elder care. Over 20% of Haitians in the U.S. work in healthcare, according to Care for Seniors, Care for America. Yoon emphasized that many TPS holders are in the “direct care” sector, providing long-term services to people with disabilities and the elderly. “Immigrant care workers play a foundational role in caregiving in our country,” she said, noting that a “significant portion” are TPS holders.
These sectors are already grappling with severe workforce shortages, which the loss of TPS workers will exacerbate. An April 2026 MIT study found that higher immigration rates, particularly among female immigrants, correlate with increased time registered nurses spend with elderly patients. “When immigration rises in a city, it significantly increases the health care workforce,” said economist Jonathan Gruber, a co-author of the study.
Economic Contributions and Potential Fallout
Replacing these workers will be challenging due to low wages and high turnover in care industries. “Agencies, providers who hire workers, they need to backfill positions. And it’s really hard to find care workers,” Yoon said. The downstream effects could ripple through the entire labor market. “Families will be left without their trusted caregivers, who they rely on to care for their children, their aging parents,” she added. “What that means is that families are going to need to shoulder this enormous caregiving responsibility. We also know that in our society, women disproportionately wear their caregiving responsibilities, and some may be forced out of the labor force to deal with their caregiving responsibilities.”
Other essential industries are also vulnerable. “TPS recipients include thousands of our union members from Boston to Miami who maintain everything from airports to downtown offices, plus countless others working in senior care, childcare, construction, food service, and more,” said Manny Pastreich, president of 32BJ of the Service Employee’s International Union. “We cannot overturn the court’s unjustifiable decision, but we must find ways to address its devastating effects.”
Data from the criminal and immigration reform group Fwd.US shows TPS holders contribute over $29 billion annually to the U.S. economy and pay nearly $8 billion in federal, payroll, state, and local taxes. Haitian and Syrian TPS holders alone contribute $4.4 billion annually, according to Public Rights Project. In Florida, a Republican stronghold, TPS holders paid $300 million in federal taxes and $306 million in state and local taxes last year, noted Jill Habig, founder of Public Rights Project.
“Local governments will experience the fallout as a community crisis,” Habig said. “Families will be separated, local economies will take a hit and people will be forced back to countries in the grip of violence, instability and humanitarian collapse. The human cost will be felt all across America.”
Community Devastation
Some cities could be decimated if TPS holders are forced to leave. In Springfield, Ohio, Haitians make up about 20-25% of the population. At least 10 businesses opened by Haitian immigrants have significantly boosted the local economy, according to the Springfield website, which also credits Haitian immigration with creating “nearly 8,000 new jobs, [and] retained another 11,900” since 2012.
“We are a city that had been in decline for 50 years, when Haitians arrived, that was the first time we grew in a half a century,” said Carl Ruby, a Springfield pastor, during a press call on Thursday. “Haitians, who are now at risk for deportation and are not able to work effectively immediately…that’s going to hurt businesses in Springfield. It’s going to lead to economic decline.”
