Louisville factory lays off immigrants after their legal immigration status was revoked

Source: CBS News

September 23, 2025 / 7:56 PM EDT


At a GE Appliances plant in Louisville, Kentucky, 5,000 workers craft kitchen essentials, including 2 million dishwashers per year, according to the company. "Every 15 seconds, per line, I've got a dishwasher coming off the line," Bill Good, the vice president in charge of the plant, told CBS News. But back in May, nearly 150 workers, mostly Cuban immigrants, were laid off after the Trump administration abruptly changed their legal immigration status.

The Biden-era parole program, known as CHNV, temporarily protected roughly 532,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans from the risk of deportation. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to terminate the program back in March. After a lower court temporarily halted the end of the program, the Supreme Court in May allowed the administration to move forward with its plan to terminate the program while the rest of the legal battle plays out.

The Department of Homeland Security in June began delivering notices via email informing recipients living in the U.S. under the CHNV program that their permission to remain in the U.S. had been rescinded. Those who have not secured another lawful immigration status, such as Temporary Protected Status, were told to leave the country.

"We're still short people. We're still training people every day on jobs," said Nathaniel Schultz, who works at the GE Appliances plant in Louisville. Jaelin Carpenter, another worker there, told CBS News, "They put us on overtime from that point on to the beginning of the year." "It's more pressure on everybody," Schultz added.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/louisville-kentucky-factory-lays-off-immigrants-legal-status-revoked/