Employees at elder care facilities on Long Island and across the state who have Temporary Protected Status are receiving deportation letters from the Trump administration, putting already understaffed nursing homes and assisted living communities at risk of being unable to care for their most vulnerable residents, according to advocates and trade groups.

Robert Brodsky reports in NEWSDAY that a central focus of President Donald Trump's mass deportation policy includes winding down TPS, a program expanded under former President Joe Biden that allows people already living in the United States to stay and work legally if their home countries are deemed unsafe due to civil unrest or natural disasters.

Workers from many countries with TPS status are overrepresented in elder care roles, experts said, including Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Stephen Hanse, president and chief executive of the New York State Health Facilities Association, which represents the nursing home industry, said elder care employees with TPS status, including those working in Nassau and Suffolk, have begun receiving letters stating that their temporary work visas have been revoked.

There have been no confirmed reports of ICE raids at nursing homes or assisted living facilities in New York.

DHS said it could not provide information on the arrest, detention or removal of employees working at elder care facilities but in a statement this week defended ending TPS protections.

"Temporary Protected Status was designed to be just that — TEMPORARY," the agency said. "Granted for 18 months under extraordinary circumstances. It was never meant to last a quarter of a century. For many of these countries, TPS was granted in the 90s after natural disasters. Now that conditions have improved, it is time to return home."

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The word Dr. Peter Sultan’s family associates him with is love. He loved his two children and his family. He loved his patients. He loved playing the piano. He loved athletic pursuits. And, they said, he loved helping people. Olivia Winslow reports in NEWSDAY that Sultan, an orthopedic surgeon at Northwell Health’s Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, where he specialized in hip and knee replacements, died while participating in the Jamesport Triathlon this past Sunday. He was 54.

"He collapsed during the third leg of the triathlon, and they were unable to revive him," said one of his three sisters, Dr. Marla Sultan, of Short Hills, New Jersey. "Very unexpected."

Dr. Agostino Cervone, director of robotic surgery at Peconic Bay Medical Center, said Sultan was a regular Jamesport Triathlon participant.

Sultan's sisters said his death was "devastating." They highlighted their brother's legacy of devotion to family and to the wider community. "He really loved helping people," said another sister, Jessica Fields, of Northport. "He was good at everything. He played piano by ear. He was a cyclist ... There’s so much to say," she said.

Peter Sultan, who at the time of his death lived in Westhampton, was born in Mineola, Long Island.

Dr. Cervone said Sultan had practiced at Peconic Bay Medical Center for "at least 20 years." He said the mood at the medical center was "somber" after Sultan's death. "Everybody's still trying to come to the realization that Dr. Sultan's not going to be there anymore," Cervone said. He said "memorials are starting to come up in the hospital in different places."

A prayer service for Sultan is scheduled for today from 11 a.m. to noon at Tuthill-Mangano Funeral Home in Riverhead.

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Shelter Island Friends of Music invites you to a concert free of charge in the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church this coming Sunday at 6pm featuring Sam Reider and the Human Hands.

“Led by Latin Grammy-nominated accordionist, pianist, and composer Sam Reider, the Human Hands is a...