Vice President of Talent and Workforce Experience

13,000 nursing assistants lost their work permits in July. There is no visa category that can replace them. Six weeks after Haitian Temporary Protected Status ended, the coverage has settled into a shape: a family, a caregiver, a nonprofit that had to make the calls. What almost none of it says is what a nursing home is supposed to do next, and the answer is that federal immigration law offers it nothing. The two channels an employer would reach for are closed by design, not by backlog, and no bill pending in Congress opens either one. That is worth stating precisely, because "we need immigration reform" is doing a lot of work in this story and it is hiding a specific fact. A long-term care operator that lost fifteen aides in July cannot sponsor a replacement on a temporary work visa, because the position is permanent. It cannot realistically sponsor one on a permanent visa either, because the category those jobs fall into is capped at a number smaller than the losses in a single sector. What the coverage counts. The human reporting has been good and it has been consistent. The BBC talked to a Long Island mother whose nonverbal 23-year-old son lost the aide who had handled his showering, eating and sleeping; the nonprofit that employed him, AHRC Nassau, cut nineteen Haitian staff this year on top of twenty-two the year before. In South Florida, Jewish Community Services lost eighteen TPS holders, some of whom had spent a decade with the Holocaust survivors they cared for. NBC News, the 19th and WUSF have all run versions of it. The scale was documented before it happened. A report Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Ed Markey and Representative Ayanna Pressley released on May 19 put roughly 13,000 Haitian TPS holders in nursing assistant roles, caring for about 65,000 patients a day. The Supreme Court cleared the terminations on June 25 in a 6-3 decision Live News Chat covered when it landed, and USCIS confirmed that the designation ended effective July 27, with the affected work permits no longer valid. Katie Smith Sloan, who runs LeadingAge, told PBS NewsHour in July that individual providers were about to lose staff in blocks of sixteen to forty at once, and that facilities were already taking beds offline and closing wings while home health agencies stopped accepting admissions. Twenty-five to 30 percent of its work force in aging services comes from other countries to care for older adults. That number is the whole argument, and it is why the replacement question is not rhetorical. Two doors, both locked. Work through it the way a staffing director would. The temporary door is H-2B, the visa for non-agricultural seasonal labor. It does not fit, and not because of the annual cap that usually gets blamed. USCIS is explicit that the employer's need itself must be temporary, and it must be temporary "regardless of whether the underlying job can be described as temporary". The four qualifying needs are a one-time occurrence, a seasonal need tied to a pattern in the calendar, a peak-load supplement to an existing permanent staff, or an intermittent need. Round-the-clock care for a nursing home resident is none of those. It is the definition of ongoing. The permanent door is EB-3, and specifically its "Other Workers" subcategory, which is where certified nursing assistants, home health aides and dietary aides land. USCIS defines it as unskilled labor requiring less than two years of training or experience, in a permanent full-time position, which describes the job accurately. Three things then happen: * The employer must obtain a labor certification from the Department of Labor before the petition is filed. * The subcategory carries a statutory ceiling of 10,000 green cards a year, worldwide, shared across every unskilled occupation in the United States. * That allocation has now been exhausted before the fiscal year closed two years running, and waits in the category run three to five years for most countries of birth. Ten thousand a year, for every unskilled job in the country, against 13,000 nursing assistants removed from one sector by one policy in one month. The arithmetic does not require interpretation. This was not an oversight. Its position, plainly: the administration knew the number and chose it anyway, and the design of the removal is what gives that away. TPS holders are not undocumented workers who slipped into the care economy. They were vetted, work-authorized, employed on the books, paying payroll taxes, in many cases for more than a decade. Ending their status did not close a loophole. It converted a legal workforce into an illegal one overnight in the one sector where federal law provides no legal way back in, and it did so after Congress had been handed the specific headcount in May and after the senior care industry had spent months saying exactly which wings would close. Anyone defending this has to answer for the substitution, and there is not one. The honest version of the policy argument would be that Americans should take these jobs, but Massachusetts facilities were sitting at a 13% vacancy rate in direct care before any of this started, at wages the industry cannot raise without a Medicaid reimbursement change that nobody has proposed. You cannot deport your way to a staffing solution in a sector that could not fill its posts when it had everyone. What should happen: Congress should pass a targeted extension for care workers already employed in the sector, and it should lift or carve out the Other Workers cap for direct care, which is a narrow fix to a statutory number that has not moved since 1990. Neither is complicated. Both have stalled, and the stall is the policy. There is one more thing the coverage keeps calling temporary. The BBC's story, like most of them, treats this as a disruption to be absorbed. It is not. A nursing assistant who leaves the country does not come back in eighteen months when the politics shift, because there is no line to rejoin. The pipeline that produced these workers was Temporary Protected Status, and that pipeline is now closed, so the losses compound quietly every month rather than resolving. Ask again in a year who is showing up at 6 a.m. to get somebody's father out of bed.

AHRC Nassau celebrates staff excellence at summer recognition events. This summer, AHRC Nassau honored standout staff across programs during the Employee of the Quarter and Hero Recognition celebrations. These events brought team members together to recognize extraordinary service, peer leadership, and daily commitment to empowering people with developmental disabilities. Employee of the Quarter honorees are nominated by their peers as exemplary staff members for leading with professionalism and a collaborative spirit. These employees serve in every part of the organization, and all play an integral role in driving our mission forward. "This recognition is very well deserved and earned. Your exemplary performance in providing educational services, medical support, and programmatic services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities truly reflects the heart of our mission," Stanfort J. Perry, CEO, said. "Each day you go above and beyond - not just meeting expectations but raising the bar. We're proud to celebrate you, and we're grateful to have you as a part of our team. Congratulations to each of you." Employee of the Quarter honorees. Belange dulorier, IT coordinator. Belange was nominated for his incredible professionalism and the thoughtfulness he brings to his work every day. He was recognized for being dependable, attentive, and responsive to those in need. Jo Ann koelling, Life Safety Officer. Jo Ann has dedicated many years to the agency serving people with disabilities in multiple roles. She is known for her dedication and her willingness to take on what the moment requires. Now serving as a Life Safety Officer, Jo Ann ensures the buildings across the agency are safe for life and work. Andrea desantolo, behavior intervention specialist. Andrea's colleagues recognized her for her compassion, dedication, and expertise supporting people with developmental disabilities. She has served many roles across the agency, all of them directly supporting people benefiting from services. She's known for her sparkling personality and willingness to help others. Julita porcher, Assistant Manager, day services. Julita is solutions oriented, actionable, and fully hands-on, that along with being a positive spirit earned her the Employee of the Quarter nomination from her peers. Julita's strength lies in her ability to lead by example and always going the extra mile to support the people receiving day services. Congratulations to all our employees of the Quarter. Heroes among us. The Hero Recognition Event highlights frontline team members for performing life saving measures, which could include performing the Heimlich maneuver and CRP. The recognition demonstrates the importance of ongoing training, and the reality that, at a moment's notice, this training can make the difference in keeping people safe. "We express our deepest gratitude to each of you for rendering lifesaving services to the people we support," Stanfort said. "Know that your actions are deeply appreciated, deeply valued, and you are a reminder of the extraordinary dedication that goes into ensuring people are safe." Hero Recognition Event honorees. Nancy Casseus, Assistant House Manager Devon Chung, Direct Support Professional Patricia Colin, Direct Support Professional Anthony Curiale, Direct Support Professional Ashley Gordon, Direct Support Professional Mpho Ross Holifield, House Manager Estela Manners, Licensed Practical Nurse, Freeport Evelyne Paraisy, Direct Support Professional "The colleagues we are celebrating today remind us of the ultimate dedication of our mission," Chris Williams, Director, Day Habilitation Services said. "They prove that when everything is on the line, staff are the ultimate safety net for those we support." Thank you for performing actions that saved lives.