‘We lose those folks, we lose part of our economy'

Boston Globe

01-03-2025

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President Trump called for mass deportations even before he took office, and immediately started allowing arrests of undocumented immigrants at schools, churches, and other previously protected places, sowing fear in immigrant communities even though such actions haven't taken place yet. He also issued an executive order
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The extension of temporary protected status, or TPS, of migrants from Venezuela was also terminated, leaving them legally vulnerable as early as April 7 — although a lawsuit has been filed — followed by the end of TPS for Haitians on Aug. 3. More restrictions are expected. In his first term, Trump tried unsuccessfully to revoke TPS for
The effect of all of this could take a heavy toll in Massachusetts, which has the country's
There are roughly 30,000 TPS holders in Massachusetts, about half of them from Haiti, according to the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. Many new arrivals with temporary protections are working in health care, hospitality, manufacturing, and food service — caring for the elderly and those with disabilities, cleaning rooms, and assembling parts. This is the kind of physically demanding, low-wage work many Americans won't do, employment specialists say.
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'Those jobs are important for everything we do,' said Jeffrey Thielman, president of the International Institute of New England,
which helped place more than 1,100 recent migrants in jobs in fiscal year 2024, 60 percent of them from Haiti. 'We lose those folks, we lose part of our economy.'
Walldina, 25, a TPS holder from Haiti who works at a packing warehouse, is worried about losing this vital protection, which also granted her a work permit. 'It's hard,' said Walldina, in French, who asked that her last name not be used because of fears about her legal status. 'If TPS is stopped, we become illegal.'
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Immigrants with asylum or pending asylum claims remain protected.
Nearly 6,400 people who are currently or were recently in emergency shelters have earned work authorization, and more than 4,800 are employed, according to the state's Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.
A number of local employers declined to speak, expressing concerns about exposing staffers with temporary status to scrutiny, especially after border czar Tom Homan said he was
Some have stopped hiring, training, and making other labor-related decisions involving new immigrants.
Others have already started firing workers. Weeks before Trump was inaugurated, around
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In the last few months, a surge of fired immigrant workers have started showing up at workers' rights clinics, said Milagros Barreto, an organizer at La Colaborativa, a Latino immigrant social services organization in Chelsea.
'Unfortunately, employers are already starting to clean the house,' Barreto said.
Northeast Arc, a developmental disabilities provider in Danvers that has struggled to fill jobs, hired 13 Haitian migrants last summer to work in residential programs, and had hoped to bring on more. For now, it's business as usual at the organization, but uncertainty fills the air.
Northeast Arc brought in an immigration attorney to talk to employees about their rights and put plans in place in the event that federal immigration agents show up. If the Haitian workers' legal status is revoked, Northeast Arc would likely have to pay overtime to cover those positions or bring on expensive temp workers who aren't familiar with residents' needs, said chief human resources officer Mara Kaufman. If staffing falls too low, a home might have to close.
'If we were to lose this group of employees, it would pose a tremendous hardship,' she said. 'It's horrible because they've done nothing wrong.'
The vast majority of immigrants with work authorization have jobs, said Mandy Townsend, senior vice president of employer engagement at the workforce development provider JVS Boston. And if TPS ends for Haitians in August, more than 10,000 workers could suddenly be in legal limbo.
'It makes no logical sense to me to remove a status for folks who are here legally, want to work, are able to work, and are doing critical jobs in our economy ' she said. 'Who are they going to be replaced by?'
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JVS itself will be impacted if workers with temporary protections lose their legal status. Around 20 employees have TPS or are here on humanitarian parole, four of whom could lose their legal status this year.
It's not just employers that would struggle if these workers were no longer on the payroll, said Kevin Brown, president of 32BJ SEIU in New England, whose members include as many as 1,000 cleaners, security guards, and airport workers with TPS.
'Immigrants contribute tremendous amounts of money to the New England economy,' he said. 'They rent, they buy houses, they buy food, they use transportation — all the things that keep the economy going.'
Even if they lose their jobs, some people would try to stay and may turn to the government for assistance. This could have a 'snowball effect' on cities' finances, said Chelsea City Councilor Manuel Teshe, who represents the business district on Broadway, where foot traffic has plummeted in recent months.
'Donald Trump would be effectively making some cities come to a halt financially in terms of social services,' he said.
The new immigration policies are putting employers in a difficult position, said Michael Goodman, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth: Fire employees who may be impossible to replace, or keep them on illegally and risk being raided by federal authorities.
Either way, more people will be in the country without authorization, he said: 'It actually makes the problem that the federal government is claiming it wants to solve worse.'
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Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
This story was produced by the Globe's
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Katie Johnston can be reached at