The massacre perpetrated by a terrorist gang in Kenskoff, which left at least 47 dead, including 22 inside a church, many wounded, and some 50 people abducted to serve as human shields, "This shows that the country is not safe, that Haiti is still a house on fire," Wenski said, adding, "this should cause our administration to rethink its decision to send back into Haiti over 300,000 Haitians" who were in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which has now been revoked.

It is worth recalling that this protection against deportation, created by Congress as part of the 1990 Immigration Act, protected nationals of countries designated by the Department of Homeland Security who were facing persistent crises, such as war and environmental disasters. More than 330,000 Haitians in the United States were benefiting from TPS protection in 2025.

Archbishop Wenski referred to a bill recently examined by the Senate which, if adopted, would extend the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti until the beginning of 2029 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-48162-florida-bishops-stand-with-haitians-benefiting-from-tps.html This text "would be adopted very easily" if President Donald Trump "gave his support" the archbishop said.

Meanwhile, Wenski laments, the United States, which strongly advises its citizens against traveling to Haiti due to crime, kidnapping, terrorism, and limited access to healthcare, is deporting Haitians to a country where they will be "exposed to gang violence."

"Haiti is a tragedy, and what we’re doing is compounding it by trying to send these people back," he stated. With more than 300,000 Haitians in the United States currently without protection from deportation, "even if you send a couple of planes a week, it’ll take several years before you are successful in deporting all those people," the archbishop said. "And what happens in the meantime is that they’ve lost their work permits, and they’ve lost their driver’s licenses for the most part. So if they can’t work, they can’t pay their rent, they can’t buy food." "Relatives in Haiti who depend upon remittances — earnings sent by migrant workers to support their families back home — will also be deprived of critical funds needed to educate children in the Caribbean nation," he added.

He stated that the Archdiocese of Miami had to "let go some 45 people that were on TPS, because we can’t legally hire them when their work permit is removed."

"The idea is to make it miserable for them so that they go back to Haiti," Wenski said. "But there’s really nothing there right now to go back to, except chaos and more pain and more suffering."

Wenski indicated that after the August 23 attack, he spoke with Archbishop Max Leroy Mésidor of Port-au-Prince, president of the Haitian Episcopal Conference, who confirmed to him that "the majority of the gangs" were located in the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince, but that "the Church must continue its mission, under all circumstances."

TB/ HaitiLibre