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A manda feels like she is living on borrowed time. An intensive care unit registered nurse from Haiti with tempo- rary protected status (TPS) living and working in California, she is technically deportable after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in June to allow the Department of Homeland Secu- rity to strip approximately 350,000 Haitians of TPS protections. Because she is in such imminent danger, we are calling her Amanda instead of her real name. The United States under the Obama administration established TPS for Haitians after the island's devastating 2010 earthquake. TPS is meant as a humanitarian pro- gram for people fleeing unsafe conditions in their home countries to tempo- rarily be able to live and work in the United States. Con- ditions in Haiti have not improved, however, and con- tinue to be extremely dangerous, with rampant gang violence and political instability verging on civil war. As a result, the TPS pro- gram has been repeatedly extended for Haitians, with recipients required to renew every 18 months. There are an estimated 103,000 Haitians working in health care, with about 50,000 on TPS. Trump during his first term tried to end TPS in 2017 for Hai- tians, but legal challenges ultimately blocked the effort and Amanda suspects he dropped his push due to needing Haitian health care workers during the Covid pandemic. He renewed his efforts once he took office in 2025, and again was met with multiple court chal- lenges and stays. Under an extremely conservative Supreme Court, however, he has managed to end the program. Over this past year, Amanda has been so stressed out following this TPS rollercoaster that she lost 20 pounds. She now pays rent month to month because she doesn't want to sign a long-term lease. She sold all the furniture in her apartment except for her bed and two kitchen chairs. She never goes outside and only leaves her apartment to work occasional per diem weekend shifts. Her income has been cut in half. She returned her leased car because she could no longer afford payments and now rides the bus. She checks her email every two hours to see if her employer has terminated her. Her work's HR department has tried to terminate her twice—before stays against ending TPS were issued. She is very afraid of being arrested and imprisoned in a remote detention center. She has a suitcase packed by the door. If she receives word that she's fired, she will immediately figure out a way to drive by car to her sister's house on the East Coast. Her plan? Hide in her sister's basement. "They'll have to fight me to deport me," said Amanda, who said that she has no home in Haiti and knows nobody there. She left Haiti 26 years ago when she was 18 years old at her mother's insistence, because the violence was too intense. While she was in nursing school in Florida, gangs murdered her father, stabbing him to death and chopping up his body. "The only thing that keeps me going is knowing I'm not the only one. We have to stand together. This is a direct attack on humanity. It was never about criminals. It's a direct insult to a spe- cific nation, and it's Black and brown. It's an insult to democracy." From a young age, Amanda knew she wanted to be a nurse. Her grandmother suffered a massive stroke when she was a child and the entire family took turns caring for her at home. She never remembered the carework as a burden, but said that all the partying, studying, cook- ing, and sleeping happened wherever her grandmother was. It took Amanda 10 years to get through nursing school, because she had to entirely pay her own way—not even qualifying for grants and finan- cial aid due to her TPS. She took odd jobs in nursing homes and meat packing to make money. She went to school when she had money; she had to withdraw when she had no money. During nursing school, she did not even know if she would be able to secure work authorization to get hired as a registered nurse. Thankfully, the TPS program started around the time she graduated and she was able to successfully get approved. She worked in Florida before moving out to California after the pandemic. She was living a full and happy life before Trump began attacking people with TPS; she loved her profession and caring for critically ill patients, she often went out on the town with friends and coworkers, she enjoyed the diversity of her city's neighborhoods and cultures. Now she is always looking over her shoulder. "They're taking me from a working person to a homeless person," said Amanda indignantly. "I have a purpose and my purpose was to become a nurse. And I have achieved it." Nancy Hagans, RN and president of both National Nurses United and New York State Nurses Association, was heartbroken by Amanda's story and is simply outraged by Trump's treatment and scapegoating of Haitians. "At a time when our hospitals and care facilities are already stretched thin, it is dangerous and unacceptable to take experienced, trusted workers out of the workforce and force them underground," said Hagans during a special TPS virtual town hall hosted by NNU on Sept. 1. "We need Haitian people here, we want Haitian people here, and National Nurses United will fight like hell to ensure every single Haitian immigrant can lead a dignified life here in the United States." Hagans, who is herself a Haitian immigrant but has U.S. citizenship, is constantly fielding urgent phone calls from desperate members of her community and trying to connect people to resources. She said that others often ask her, "Nancy, why are you so passionate about TPS? You are not here on TPS." Because, she answers, "I could have been her." NNU is trying to help Amanda sort out her legal routes for staying in the United States, but the options are very limited. Hagans said the government needs to immediately reinstate TPS for Haiti and other affected countries. Despite what Trump's cruel policies have stolen from Amanda, they cannot take her identity as a registered nurse. "I will never stop being a nurse, and a damn good one," she said. "I will always stand for what's right. I will stand and I will break the door to get what my patient needs." —Lucia Hwang J U LY | A U G U S T | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 6 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 27 MY LIFE IS HERE Trump's ending of temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians forces one nurse into the shadows "They're taking me from a working person to a homeless person. I have a purpose and my purpose was to become a nurse."