Nursing homes and home health agencies in Wisconsin have had to scrap plans years in the making to hire workers from overseas, after the Trump administration suspended almost all refugee programs.

One nursing home operator in Sparta invested more than $100,000 in building apartments to house overseas workers – when policy changed, the housing was used for current workers, according to a report in Wisconsin Watch.

“International recruitment is a multi-year strategy, and it doesn’t happen overnight,” Kate Battiato, VP of media and community impact for LeadingAge Wisconsin, told Wisconsin Watch. “One election can change the strategy that has been built over years. … It makes their already difficult challenges recruiting and retaining workers more difficult.”

This is in addition to the terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants from 13 countries, weakening an already struggling workforce, operators in the rural state told the local publication.

While operators in the state are staying innovative, the combination of immigrant staff affected by TPS and the refugee programs has fed into turnover that was already happening in the state.

Immigration attorney representing Haitian immigrants in central Wisconsin Marc Christiopher told Wisconsin Watch that the situation is a “lose-lose-lose” scenario for the community. Operators are losing valuable labor and residents are losing quality care.

Outgoing LeadingAge CEO Katie Smith Sloan said the abrupt departure of direct care workers as a result of TPS and refugee programs ending “shatters” the relationships between staff and residents.

“You’ve been there for four years and have had the same caregiver who knows everything about you, knows your birthday, knows what you like to eat for breakfast, knows what time you like to go to bed, knows what movies you watch … suddenly, that person is ripped away from you, which is what has happened recently with TPS,” Sloan told Wisconsin Watch. “You’ve really lost an important part of your life.”

And of course it’s a desperate situation for the immigrant staff themselves, and their families that have made a life here, with many returning to countries still unsafe due to humanitarian crises or gang violence.

Out of Jewish Social Services of Madison’s clients, about 30% lost their jobs in the medical sector, according to Zabi Sahibzada, refugee settlement director for the organization.

Robin Wolzenburg, director of operations at Koru Health and previously at LeadingAge Wisconsin, worked to place refugees in nursing home positions. Her efforts stopped in January 2025 when the administration cut off refugee programs: “It didn’t seem like it was a trickle – it just seemed like it stopped,” Wolzenburg told Wisconsin Watch.

State officials, meanwhile, in April signed off on legislation allowing DACA recipients to obtain professional licenses in nursing and other fields.