Health care workers join national push to protect immigrant caregivers

Health care workers and members of 1199SEIU, along with community allies, rallied Thursday at the University of Rochester Nursing School to demand protections for immigrant workers in the field and their families. 

The event was part of “Healthcare Needs Us All,” a national day of action held in cities across the country that called on Congress to protect immigrant health care workers and the patients and residents who depend on them.

During the 30-minute lunchtime walkout in Rochester, organizers spoke about the role immigrants play in health care and criticized the Trump administration’’s immigration crackdown and cuts to health care.

“No matter if you live in a big city or a small town, we’re all paying the price of these cruel policies,” said Tracey Harrison, 1199SEIU vice president for the Rochester area.

“People with disabilities and seniors will be told there are no home care workers or spots available in community-based programs,” he said. “Nurses and doctors who already feel the pressures of short staffing will scramble to try to provide care without enough staff to do so safely. (Certified nursing assistants) will be unable to respond to the immediate needs of all residents assigned to them. We will feel the literal pain of this.”

Harrison said immigrants make up about 20% of essential caregivers and workers in hospitals, nursing homes, and home care in the U.S.

Organizers called for restoring legal status for Temporary Protected Status holders and other immigrants, passing the American Dream and Promise Act to create a pathway to citizenship, ending what they called discriminatory travel bans and processing delays, and increasing funding for health care.

Workers like Sharif Hill contrasted health care cuts with a surge in money and staff for immigration enforcement. He said funds that could be used to support American health care programs and essential workers are instead being funneled into the Department of Homeland Security to conduct mass deportations.

“Just a few years ago (during COVID-19), as health care workers, we were heroes. Now, we are expendable,” he said. “I look at the cuts that we have done all over America with hospital closings, jobs being cut, just for ICE to be able to pick someone up off the street and send them to a country they’re not even from. It’s unacceptable. They are tearing families apart and we can no longer remain silent.”

In July 2025, Congress passed H.R. 1, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a sweeping tax and spending law that made major changes to Medicaid nationwide. New York stands to lose $10 billion to $13.5 billion in annual funding once the law is fully in place in 2032, according to a report by the New York State Bar Association. The report estimates about 450,000 New Yorkers will lose coverage this year, with another 1 million losing Medicaid when the law is fully implemented.

“The loss in revenue for uncompensated or lower payments from underinsured will place additional financial pressure on providers across the state,” the report states. “With better-than-expected revenue collections in the current fiscal year (2026), the state is in a position to advance short-term strategies to mitigate significant financial impacts on the health care system, but such measures are unlikely to be sustainable.”

The law also set aside about $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security through 2029, including roughly $75 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE’s annual budget had been about $10 billion. Some of that money is likely to go toward a 100-bed expansion of the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, announced in July.

More than a dozen health care providers or services in the region have closed or been cut since the law passed, according to a live tracker kept by the advocacy group Protect Our Care. They include Rochester Regional Health’s developmental and behavioral pediatrics services at its Irondequoit practice and inpatient labor and delivery at Newark-Wayne Community Hospital. The health system cited workforce strain for the pediatric cuts, and changing community needs, declining delivery rates across the region and ongoing workforce challenges for ending labor and delivery.

Organizers closed the event by emphasizing the importance of voting in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, then workers and their allies led chants in support of immigrants. 

David Wazana is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a member of the Oasis Project’s second cohort. 

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