Trump's Immigrant Deportations and the Shortage of Nurses and Caregivers

The Trump administration's crackdown on both legal and illegal immigrants comes at a time when the United States faces a growing nursing and caregiver shortage.

According to an NPR article by Jordan Rau (https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5443988…), more than 800,000 immigrants and naturalized citizens comprise 28% of direct care employees at home care agencies, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other long-term care companies.

This same article states that the growing nursing and caregiver shortage will have a severe impact on the of aging baby boomers needing professional care. The Census Bureau has projected that the number of people 65 or older will grow from 63 million this year to 82 million in 2050.

An article by Alice Miranda Ollstein for Politico (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/31/they-are-the-backbone-trumps-t…) cited a study published in the medical journal JAMA in April calculated that about a million non-citizen immigrants work in health care, including more than 366,500 who are undocumented. Long term care for the elderly and for people with disabilities will be especially hard hit by mass deportations — where immigrants make up nearly 30 percent of the direct care workforce.

Here is a video on how I made this cartoon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmoqyP2vKqg

REFERENCES
"Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Hits Senior Care Work Force. Nursing homes and home care agencies have lost workers as the Trump administration has moved to end deportation protections for migrants with temporary legal status." by Madeleine Ngo for The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/us/politics/immigration-senior-careg…

"‘They're the backbone’: Trump’s targeting of legal immigrants threatens health sector" by Alice Miranda Ollstein for Politico
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/31/they-are-the-backbone-trumps-t…

"Nursing homes face 2 threats: Trump's Medicaid cuts and his immigration crackdown" by Jordan Rau for NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5443988…

"Over 350K Health Workers Face Deportation Risks" by Nicole Lou for MedPage Today
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/workforce/114947

"How Trump's immigration policies could worsen the health care worker shortage" by Ronnie Cohen for NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/09/g-s1-59072/tr…

A youtube video by the Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI) on the importance of Filipina Care Workers in the San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4F_rO6N2eM