"If you look at their response even to Hurricane Matthew, right afterwards you go to the local government and you're like ok, do you have any food stored or anything set aside for how people are going to eat? And they have nothing, they didn't prepare at all. So it was up to NGOs and us with the Church," Quinn said, to provide support and bring in international aid.
Non-profits and charitable organizations are often left to take care of the people of Haiti, Quinn noted, but he added that charity, while necessary, also decreases many people's drive to work and often perpetuates the cycle of poverty.
"You could work for a whole day and make like a dollar or two, or you can just give me (something), which people often do, because they're so poor. So it just becomes this kind of cycle of dependence," Quinn said.
"So if you have a Haitian who's living in the United States and he's a productive member of society, and then he goes back to Haiti, then it's very likely he's going to become dependent, not productive," he said.
The decision to end TPS would also not only disrupt the lives of the 60,000 people who have been living in the United States for seven years, Quinn added, but it would also disrupt the lives and sources of income on which many Haitians depend.
"Many, many of them depend on people living in the States, sending money back to their families. So many people depend on that, so if they were to get kicked out, the situation gets incredibly worse, not just for those people but for their families who were getting $100 a month or whatever amount sent back," he said.
"It's just really sad to see," he added. "I can't imagine having my life set up somewhere else for (almost) a decade, and having it taken away like that."
Earlier this month, the Catholic bishops of the United States released a report entitled Haiti's Ongoing Road to Recovery: The Necessity of an Extension of Temporary Protected Status, recommending the U.S. government extend TPS for Haitians.
"(W)hile conditions in Haiti are improving, the country is not yet in a position where it can adequately and safely accept return of the estimated 50,000 Haitian nationals who have received TPS," Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration, said in his introduction to the report.
Similarly, in October, the U.S. Bishops recommended that the Trump administration extend TPS for people from Honduras and El Salvador, who would face violence and crime if they were sent back to their countries.
Many lawmakers of both parties have voiced their opposition to the decision to end TPS status for Haitians, including many in Florida, where more than half of TPS Haitians live.
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"I traveled to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 and after hurricane Matthew in 2016. So I can personally attest that Haiti is not prepared to take back nearly 60,000 TPS recipients under these difficult and harsh conditions," Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), said on Twitter.
TPS status for an estimated 200,000 Salvadorans is set to expire in January, while a decision on the TPS status of 57,000 Hondurans has been deferred for six months.
Mary Farrow worked as a staff writer for Catholic News Agency until 2020. She has a degree in journalism and English education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.