Nursing Homes Feel the Immigration Pinch

Nursing homes already struggling to recruit staff are now grappling with President Trump's moves against one of their few reliable sources of workers: immigration. Facilities for older adults and disabled people are reporting the sporadic loss of employees who have had their legal status revoked, per the AP. But they fear even more dramatic impacts are ahead as pipelines of potential workers slow to a trickle with an overall downturn in legal immigration. "We feel completely beat up right now," says Deke Cateau, CEO of AG Rhodes, which operates three nursing homes in the Atlanta area, with one-third of the staff made up of foreign-born people from about three dozen countries. "The pipeline is getting smaller and smaller."

Nearly one in five civilian workers in the US is foreign-born, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but as in construction, agriculture, and manufacturing, immigrants are overrepresented in caregiving roles. More than a quarter of an estimated 4 million nursing assistants, home health aides, personal care aides and other so-called direct care workers are foreign born, according to PHI, a nonprofit focused on the caregiving workforce. The aging of the massive Baby Boom generation is poised to fuel even more demand for caregivers, both in institutional settings and in individuals' homes. BLS projects more growth among home health and personal care aides than any other job, with some 820,000 new positions added by 2032.

Katie Smith Sloan, CEO of LeadingAge, which represents nonprofit care facilities, says homes around the country have been affected by the immigration tumult. Some have reported employees who have stopped coming to work, fearful of a raid, even though they are legally in the country. Others have workers who are staying home with children they have kept out of school because they worry about roundups. Many others see a slowdown of job applicants. "I think it's the tip of the iceberg," says Rachel Blumberg, CEO of the Toby and Leon Cooperman Sinai Residences in Boca Raton, Florida. (Read the full story.)