Healthcare workers rally against Trump’s immigration policies

Healthcare workers gathered outside Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan Sept. 24 as part of a nationwide day of action focused on immigrant workers, with labor leaders warning that changes to immigration protections could deepen staffing challenges and affect patients who rely on the healthcare system.

The lunchtime rally was one of several held across New York City as part of “Healthcare Needs Us All,” a campaign hosted by Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union and other labor organizations. Workers and organizers called on Congress to restore legal status for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status and other forms of work authorization, create pathways to citizenship and more. 

The demonstrations came as the Trump administration has expanded immigration enforcement and moved to end or alter protections for some immigrant populations. Haitian TPS holders have been especially vulnerable while also comprising a large segment of healthcare workers in the U.S. 

The concerns raised at the rally reflect a larger issue for the workforce, organizers said.

Nearly 20 percent of essential caregivers and providers working in U.S. hospitals, nursing homes and home and community-based care were born outside the United States, organizers said. Roughly 1 million healthcare workers have legal work authorization that advocates say is threatened by current immigration policies.

‘How can you focus on completing your work?’

Vernon Jefferson, a rehabilitation aide who has worked at the hospital for 40 years, told The Chief that the national immigration policies have severely disrupted the work environment at Lenox Hill Hospital.

“Some of the workers, especially the immigrant workers, are nervous,” Jefferson said. “They’re scared” to go about their normal lives, he said, “because they’re not sure what’s going to happen.”

Jefferson also said he understood that four hospital workers had been terminated and deported, and that he believed one or two of those workers were not born in Haiti.

Jasmine Braithwaite, a social worker who has worked at Lenox Hill for roughly nine years, said the uncertainty can weigh on healthcare workers – whose jobs intrinsically involve caring for others – while worrying about their own security and ability to remain in the country.

“How can you focus on completing your work and caring for other people, especially when you work in a hospital setting, when you have to worry about whether or not you're going to be okay.”

Both workers said hospital leadership has procedures governing interactions with immigration authorities and has communicated with employees about protecting workers and patients. Braithwaite described management as supportive but limited in its ability to intervene in federal immigration enforcement decisions.

Restore Temporary Protected Status, reverse Medicaid cuts

Nadine Williamson, Local 1199's senior executive vice president, linked the immigration issue to broader concerns about federal healthcare funding. She said the healthcare system is already facing pressure from what she described as $1 trillion in federal Medicaid cuts contained in the Republican budget bill.

“The attacks on immigrants are making it even worse,” Williamson said in a statement, calling for Congress to restore healthcare funding, reverse Medicaid cuts and provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers while restoring TPS.

“Many of our own members are now facing the excruciating challenge of how to provide for their families while facing the threat of deportation,” Henry Garrido, the executive director of District Council 37, said in a statement. Garrido, who participated in a rally with healthcare workers on Thursday morning outside of City Hall, called the federal policies “cruel and inhumane.” 

Other union demands include ending travel bans and processing delays that organizers say prevent qualified immigrants from working legally or reaching the United States, as well as redirecting money currently being used for deportation operations toward healthcare programs.

The day of action extended beyond Manhattan. In Brooklyn, Local 1199 and New York State Nurses Association members rallied at Maimonides Medical Center, emphasizing the need to protect immigrant workers and patients. Healthcare workers also gathered at Interfaith Medical Center, holding signs and chanting in support of their foreign colleagues.

At Lenox Hill, the rally also highlighted the longstanding role of unions in organizing healthcare workers. Jefferson, who joined Local 1199 when he began working at the hospital in the 1980s, said the union has grown substantially during his career and has provided members with education, advancement opportunities and workplace protections.

Braithwaite said Thursday’s rally also reflected the culture of solidarity among hospital workers.

“We’re an ecosystem,” she said. “We can’t function with just one person. All of us have a role that we play.”