U.S. Employers Forced to Fire Thousands of Immigrants, and a Showdown over Peptides

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**Tracy Mumford** (0:32)
From the New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Thursday, July 23rd. Here's what we're covering.
Employers across the US are facing a deadline of tomorrow to fire hundreds of thousands of people whose authorization to work in the country has been terminated by the Trump administration. Last Friday was the deadline for businesses to dismiss immigrants from six countries, including Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Syria, whose temporary protected status has now ended. Tomorrow, the work permits of Haitians with TPS will expire. More than 330,000 Haitians have been living in the US under that program, and they could also now be deported. The Department of Homeland Security gave employers the deadlines this month after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration to end some TPS protections. The status is given to migrants from countries facing crises like natural disasters or civil unrest, and the administration stressed the program was designed to be temporary.
One industry that's expected to take a big hit from these changes is health care. At least 50,000 TPS holders work in that field, which has already been struggling to fill positions, especially as Americans get older and need more long-term care. Around the country, The Times has been talking with senior care facilities that are having to let people go, some of whom have worked there for years. The chief executive of a senior living provider in the Boston area said he's expecting to have to dismiss 40 Haitian workers tomorrow. It comes as these facilities were already losing staff due to changes in the DACA program, which shields people brought to the US as children from deportation. Renewing your DACA status used to take several weeks, but under the Trump administration, it's now a months-long process, forcing thousands of people out of the workforce, at least temporarily. The head of an industry group that represents more than 5,000 senior service providers called the Trump administration's immigration policies a disservice to older adults and families in need of care and said, quote, There is no workforce waiting in the wings.
In Washington today, there could be a high-profile showdown over the future of what's become a buzzy wellness trend. Peptides.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:05)
Peptides are everything right now, and we all have our favorites.

**Tracy Mumford** (3:08)
Trisipatide gets the job done, suppresses your appetite. Number two, Slup332 cranks up that metabolic rate.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:13)
What this is going to do is improve fine lines, wrinkles, and firmness. Add this to your routine and thank us later.

**Tracy Mumford** (3:18)
Recently, influencers and celebrities have been talking up what they describe as a miracle drug, claiming peptides can give you brighter skin, bigger muscles, heal your wounds, or even extend your lifespan.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:31)
I mean, I'm a big fan of peptides. I've used them myself and used them with really good effect on a couple of injuries.

**Tracy Mumford** (3:38)
One of the most prominent supporters of the drugs is Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been pushing the FDA to make peptides more widely accessible. Chemically speaking, our bodies naturally produce thousands of peptides, which are short chains of amino acids. They do everything from regulating hormones to reducing inflammation. Endorphins, for example, are peptides. So are medications like Ozempic. But when influencers talk about them, they're often talking about a vast constellation of experimental products that can, in some cases, be dangerous, potentially leading to severe allergic reactions or tumor growth. A few years ago, the federal government banned specialized pharmacies from producing a number of peptide injections because of safety concerns. Now, under Kennedy, the FDA is considering whether to overturn that ban.
Starting today, a 19-member FDA advisory panel will take up the issue, and in a highly unusual situation, six of the people appointed to the panel sell or dispense peptides themselves, even though panels like this are intended to be neutral bodies of outside experts. Kennedy has argued that lifting restrictions on these peptides would bring them into mainstream production, instead of letting them circulate on a more dangerous black market. Though, he's also made more sweeping arguments, saying at one point, If you want to take an experimental drug, you can do that. You ought to be able to do that. Meanwhile, critics of opening the peptide floodgates point to the fact that there is little to no data about exactly how many popular peptide products actually work in humans. One doctor and researcher told the Times, I don't have a bias that the peptides are bad necessarily. I just want to see the evidence, and we don't have any.