For Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, the issue of immigration is close to his heart.
For more than four decades, Wenski has worked closely with South Florida’s immigrant community. He regularly makes trips to Latin America and Haiti to celebrate Mass and provide religious services. Recently, Wenski traveled to Chile to work with Haitian and Venezuelan migrants living in the country. Earlier this year, he went to Congress along with several El Salvadorian ministers to advocate on behalf of temporary protected status holders (TPS).
El Salvador and Haiti are two of six countries with TPS holders in the U.S. who are scheduled to lose their status in the coming years because of an executive order issued by the Trump administration. Many TPS holders have gone to Wenski for advice on what to do next. On International Migrants Day, Archbishop Wenski joined Sundial to talk about how immigrants provide a temporary workforce.
This transciption has been edited lightly for clarity.
WLRN: How do you deal with anger towards the immigrant community?
WENSKI: This anger is not only here in the United States. We see this expressed around the world, and a lot of that is the result of playing on people's fears and the fear of the stranger and about fixing our immigration system that would provide a temporary workforce for people in agriculture and other parts of the country. That's another place where jobs are going unfulfilled because we don't have a system that allows employers here to bring in people who can work here legally or even temporarily.
Right now we have jobs that are [needing workers] in agriculture, in the service industry and in construction. So we need workers and we're going to get these workers from immigrants.
We've talked about temporary protected status. Let's take a look for example in Chile. There are a lot of Haitians now going to Chile and that's also now caused a lot of tension there.
Well, I was in Chile about three weeks ago and I visited several Haitian communities. I celebrated Mass in Creole. I gave a quick course on how they could celebrate Mass in Creole. Chile has received immigrants in the past from Peru, Colombia and most recently from Venezuela and from Haiti. There is an estimate of about 100,000 Haitians and I've gone to Chile not from the United States but directly from Haiti.
Some of the Chilean government is offering them free flights back to Haiti if they promise to not come back within nine years. Most of the Haitians are not taking them up on that and are finding jobs. They have only been there about a year, so many of them are still struggling to master the Spanish language, and those that have learned Spanish quicker are rising quicker and getting better jobs. But the Haitians will do as well in Chile as I think they've done here in the United States if given the opportunity.
What about Haitians in South Florida and the United States? They've lost their ability to renew their TPS.
We have probably close to a million Haitians in the United States and we're only talking about 60,000 Haitians who benefited from TPS after the earthquake in 2010. It was the decision of the Trump administration not to renew TPS for the Haitians, but also for the Salvadorans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans and some other people from African countries. TPS is an interesting thing and was developed in the early 90s as a way to address what we do with people who are in the United States and a situation where the circumstances of their country change so they cannot go back safely.
When you talk to Haitians and they're concerned about having to go back or what to do next, what are you telling them?
I'm telling them to keep hoping because I think the political process is still in play and that the solution has to be a political solution. And the key to that solution is in Congress.
