Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, local leaders and Haitian immigrants condemned a Supreme Court decision on Thursday allowing the Trump administration to end deportation protections under Temporary Protected Status for over 350,000 Haitians and Syrians.
“These are people that are very nervous. They’re nervous about having to go back to Haiti, because many times there’s no place to go back to,” Wenski said. “Or they can’t go back to the area that they came from, because that area has become under the control of gangs and is too dangerous to go to.”
About 350,000 Haitian nationals in the United States face the risk of being returned to a country that is engulfed in extreme gang violence, widespread hunger and political instability. The United Nations estimates that gang violence has killed over 2,300 people in Haiti since the beginning of this year. Wenski’s remarks come as many in South Florida, the heart of the Haitian community in the country, are reeling after the justices reversed a lower court ruling upholding TPS protections for Haitians.