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President Trump says for too long, immigrants have exploited programs that grant temporary permission to stay and work in the U.S. So he's moved to end those programs. His decision has rattled health care workers who tend to the sick and elderly. NPR's Andrea Hsu reports.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Aurora first came to Los Angeles from Honduras about 35 years ago.
AURORA: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: She was young, she says, and she yearned for a better future...
AURORA: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: ...For her family, her young daughters, she says. NPR agreed to only use Aurora's first name because she fears being targeted by immigration authorities. She had worked as a nurse back in Honduras and brought those skills to America. She found her way into home health care, taking care of elderly and disabled people in their homes.
AURORA: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: She says she does everything for her clients, helping them bathe and dress, taking them places, including the beauty salon. The work can be difficult at times.
AURORA: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: She says she's had to handle patients who cry and scream and bite. This kind of work doesn't pay well. In many parts of the country, immigrants shoulder a lot of the burden. For a while, Aurora did this work with no legal status. But then, in late 1998, a hurricane devastated Honduras, and shortly thereafter, the U.S. granted temporary protected status to Hondurans, citing the environmental disaster the hurricane had wrought. For the first time, Aurora had permission to live and work in the U.S.
AURORA: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: "I felt protected," she says.
Since then, TPS for Honduras has been extended multiple times. But earlier this year, the Trump administration said no more. The conditions have improved, and it's safe for Hondurans to go home. That decision faces a court challenge, but at the moment, TPS for Honduras is active only until November 18. In a statement to NPR, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called TPS a de facto amnesty program that's allowed unvetted aliens to remain in the U.S. indefinitely. She wrote, "too often these programs have been exploited to allow criminal aliens to come to our country and terrorize American citizens." Aurora, who spent nearly her entire adult life in the U.S., takes issue with that.
AURORA: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: "Not all immigrants are criminals," she says. "We're hardworking people earning an honest living."
Now, Aurora, and thousands like her, never had a path to permanent legal status. Her temporary protections just kept getting extended. Her union, SEIU Local 2015, has been pushing lawmakers for solutions. Arnulfo De La Cruz, the union's president, says he's tired of hearing people say, why can't immigrants do it the right way? Get in line. Wait your turn. He says it's not so simple.
ARNULFO DE LA CRUZ: It's not an application that you fill out and you get processed. There's actually no legal pathway with the exception of a couple that are pretty difficult.
HSU: Like getting married or applying for asylum. He's struck by the fact that just a few years ago, during the COVID pandemic, care workers were recognized as essential. The country could not do without them. And now, at least for some of them, the message is - go home.
DE LA CRUZ: To go from that to this, I think, is creating an enormous amount of stress.
HSU: Roberto Oronia is feeling that stress, even though he is a U.S. citizen born in Los Angeles.
ROBERTO ORONIA: This has infected everybody. And I say infected. It's not affected. It has infected the psyche.
HSU: Oronia works as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home, alongside a lot of immigrants who, like him, have family members, friends, coworkers who fear getting caught up in President Trump's immigration enforcement. He worries the anxiety could have consequences for the people they care for.
ORONIA: When anxiety is elevated, people are nervous. People are stressed. Their minds are on other things. Accidents happen.
HSU: A patient might fall, he says, when caregivers are less attentive. Aurora says she does not plan to return to Honduras when and if her TPS ends.
AURORA: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: "There's tremendous poverty there," she says, "gangs, corruption." She'd rather take her chances here. Andrea Hsu, NPR News, Los Angeles.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHIGEO SEKITO'S "THE WORD 2") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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