Walmart employees are saying they’re losing coworkers overnight.
As the largest private employer in America, the retailer is adhering to a broad Supreme Court ruling that permitted the Trump administration to rescind labor protections for 500,000 migrant workers.
Walmart staffers are saying the company is responding with quick staffing cuts in stores. They’re worried there aren’t enough workers.
In a Reddit thread dedicated to Walmart, a user queried, ‘Anyone else just lose a bunch of employees to Trump policy?’ The user mentioned their store recently saw 10 workers with work visas depart.
Another Reddit user disclosed that their store experienced a loss of 40 employees out of a 400-person workforce, accounting for 10% of the total staff. The Redditor highlighted that the remaining employees are now faced with the challenge of maintaining store operations smoothly.
Some said their store is turning to elderly employees to fill the gap.
‘Most of our older floor associates are constantly asking for help,’ another added. ‘It’s not really ideal.’
Retail experts told DailyMail.com that the impact on consumers at affected stores is likely temporary and regional.
Walmart employees have taken to social media to express their worries about sudden staffing losses
‘This disruption is real, but it’s more of a speed bump than a roadblock for a company that’s weathered much worse,’ Carol Spieckerman, a global retail expert, said.
‘This is just the latest curveball for Walmart — after navigating inflation, potential tariffs, and economic uncertainty, they’ve become experts at adaptation.
‘The impact won’t be uniform. States closer to the border will feel this more acutely than stores in the heartland.’
Walmart’s reported job cuts come after President Donald Trump abruptly ended a Biden-era parole program.
Biden created the program, called CHNV, in January 2023 that temporarily shielded over 534,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants from deportation until the end of 2025.
The program granted work permits. Recipients were legally allowed to take US jobs, and officials notified their employers that the visas needed to renew at the end of this year.
But in late May this year, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to quickly remove the Biden-era program, creating widespread uncertainty for employees and their employers.
For employees, the fallout is already visible inside Walmart stores. The company did not respond to multiple comment requests from DailyMail.com.
Walmart is caught in a thorny paperwork issue, lawyers told DailyMail.com
The company, which is America’s largest employer, is reportedly telling managers in Florida and Texas to look at HR paperwork
Bloomberg previously reported that the company has instructed store managers — particularly in Florida and Texas — to begin identifying employees whose work authorizations may have been rapidly revoked.
Internal documents reviewed by the outlet indicate that affected staff must reverify their work eligibility immediately.
The legal situation is complex and extremely high-risk for large employers, according to Loren Locke, an immigration attorney in Georgia.
‘Employers like Walmart have no choice but to stop employing workers who lack US work authorization,’ she told DailyMail.com.
‘But it is tricky to comply when they have a large number of current employees whose work permits are getting cancelled prematurely.’
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not directly notified employers about which workers are losing their status.
Instead, a March federal filing by Trump officials said employers carried ‘constructive knowledge’ if they continued to employ the migrants using the Biden-era program.
According to Locke, that shifted legal responsibility on employers like Walmart. The companies can be held legally accountable for keeping workers on staff that relied on the visa program.
But corporate I-9 management systems are often not designed to flag sudden early terminations. The Trump administration’s decision to cancel the program doesn’t allow companies to easily search which CHNV visas are now cancelled.
Complicating matters further, the Biden-era permit falls under the same immigration employment category as other immigration work programs.
Walmart currently operates over 4,800 stores across the US
These problems make it nearly impossible for most employers to separate CHNV applicants from staffers on still-in-place visa programs.
For many retailers, the paperwork issue has created a thorny situation that could put them in trouble with the Trump administration if they keep employees.
But if they do comply with the Trump administration’s orders, asking employees about their visa status could also leave companies susceptible to discrimination lawsuits.
Locke called the sudden shift an ‘immediate compliance crisis for retailers.’
Walmart is not the only company that appears to be taking the proactive step of reviewing work authorization ahead of schedule, based on the government’s broader warning.
Disney also reportedly started laying off staff at its Florida parks that relied on the visa program.
But according to Jamie E. Wright, a trial attorney in Los Angeles, the issue exposes how companies need to update their employee tracking systems.
The outdated tech, in her estimation, has left visa-holding employees as collateral damage in the rapidly-shifting visa landscape.
‘We’re not talking about people trying to bend the rules. These are employees who’ve done everything right,’ she said.
‘What Walmart and other employers really need is not a blanket policy, but a smarter system — one that helps track renewals, supports workers through the process, and leads with respect. That’s not only the decent thing to do. It’s also better business.’
