‘Devastating’: lives of nurses and patients upended by Trump migrant crackdown

Jhony Silva and his mother, Claudia Carias de Silva, prepare food for the family during Claudia's work break. Photograph: Ximena Natera/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Jhony Silva and his mother, Claudia Carias de Silva, prepare food for the family during Claudia's work break. Photograph: Ximena Natera/The Guardian ‘Devastating’: lives of nurses and patients upended by Trump migrant crackdown Withdrawal of TPS designation puts workers who fill vital role in peril – and risks further shortages in US health system W hen Dolores Jacoby’s doctor told her there was little she could do to treat her acute myeloid leukemia, a deafening silence filled the hospital room, where she was surrounded by her family. Dolores had only recently been diagnosed with the rare aggressive cancer. Her beloved nursing assistant, Janeth, was standing just outside her room. After the doctor left, Janeth entered with a tray containing each family member’s favorite beverage. “If there’s anybody who can recover, it’s your mother,” she told John Jacoby, Dolores’s son, before leaving the room as inconspicuously as she had arrived. It was 2012. More than a decade later, John still remembers that day in his mother’s hospital room in the San Francisco Bay Area clearly. “We had just heard the worst news of our lives, and Janeth injected life into my mom, into her veins, into the atmosphere, you know, for all of us,” he said. Dolores was given three months to live after her diagnosis, her children said. She lived for three years. The family largely credits Janeth, who later attended Dolores’s funeral and stayed in touch with them. In March, the Guardian informed John that Janeth, who is from Honduras, had lost her job because of her immigration status. He was gutted. “That makes no sense,” he said. “They need to take her back for the patients. I just hope I don’t ever end up in a hospital bed without someone like [her] by my side.” Janeth, 50, prefers to be identified by only her middle name for this article because of the sensitivity of her immigration case. She has been in the United States for over two decades on temporary protected status (TPS), a legal program that has allowed more than a million people to live and work in the US. TPS is granted to individuals from countries facing conflict, environmental disaster, or other circumstances that make it unsafe to return. Last year, the Trump administration revoked TPS for many countries, including Honduras, leaving its former beneficiaries without lawful immigration status virtually overnight – and at risk of detention and deportation as a legal battle over it continues. After winning a prestigious national nursing award seven times during her 23-year career, Janeth was suddenly considered by the government to be in the United States illegally. She and her 85-year-old mother had to move in with Janeth’s daughter because she can no longer pay her mortgage. “I just want my job back, I just want my life back. I want to take care