President Donald Trump is using powers enabled by a recent Supreme Court decision to force thousands out of jobs, and it’s the elderly who could face “dire consequences” of his actions.
Last month, the court ruled in Mullin v. Doe that federal law bars judges from reviewing presidential decisions on Temporary Protected Status — meaning no court can stop Trump from terminating it, according to CBS News.
The ruling’s mandate took effect Monday, ending TPS for an estimated 348,000 Haitians — including 13,000 nursing assistants and 8,000 caregivers, Princeton University research fellow Phillip Connor found.
A peer-reviewed study in The Gerontologist found that staffing shortages have “dire consequences for residents” of nursing homes and long-term care facilities, where certified nursing assistants provide up to 90% of direct resident care. When staffing levels fall short, the study warned, “residents are at elevated risk for neglect and harm” — including infection and rehospitalization.
LeadingAge, which represents nursing home providers, said facilities face closing units or turning away new residents entirely until vacancies are filled.
For Haitian communities across the country, the human cost is already being felt.
“Once again our community members find themselves in a state of extreme trauma, fear and terror. One of them told me it feels like a tsunami or an earthquake with nonstop aftershocks,” Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, told CBS News.
The ruling that handed Trump this authority reversed a lower court that had found the TPS termination was “in part” rooted in “racial animus.” The Supreme Court’s majority overrode that finding, ruling that presidential TPS decisions are not subject to judicial review. Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival celebrated on X, writing, “The T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson called it “a tremendous win,” telling Fox News the ruling affirmed that TPS “was never intended to be a pathway to permanent status.”
DHS told CBS News it was “closing time,” and offered departing Haitians a $2,600 check and a free flight home.
A Senate bill that would have extended TPS protections for three years failed this week. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had urged senators to act, warning of “significant disruption to America’s work force.”
Jozef said the fear has reached into the smallest corners of family life.
“Her little girl doesn’t even want to go to school for fear of coming home and not finding her mother,” she said.
