ROME, Jan 26, (AP): The president of Haiti’s transitional presidential council said the Trump administration’s decisions to freeze aid programs, deport migrants and block refugees will be "catastrophic” for Haiti. Leslie Voltaire made the comment in an interview with The Associated Press in Rome on Saturday following a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

He visited the pope to ask for help for Haiti. "I’m knocking on the doors of people who love Haiti. The pope loves Haiti, and he is eager to help,” Haiti's interim president said. The pontiff and Voltaire discussed the dire situation in Haiti where gangs have killed civilians and operate across the Caribbean nation with impunity.

Half of Haiti’s 11.4 million people are already hungry, according to Voltaire, and losing humanitarian assistance will make the situation dramatically worse. "Trump said that Haiti is a ‘shithole,’ so I don’t think he will care about Haiti,” Voltaire said, noting that thousands of people are already being repatriated from the Dominican Republic every week and gangs are terrorizing the populace.

With the new US policies, "the situation will be catastrophic.” During his first administration, President Donald Trump used bluntly vulgar language to question why the US would accept immigrants from Haiti and "shithole countries” in Africa. At the time, the White House did not deny his remark but issued a statement saying Trump supports immigration policies that welcome "those who can contribute to our society.”

Voltaire said there are roughly 1.5 million Haitians in the United States and roughly 150,000 who were accepted under a program called the "Temporary Protection System.” "Trump says that he will expel all of them,” Voltaire said, adding that Haiti, which is already struggling with hunger and internally displaced people, cannot handle the influx.

In a report released this month, the UN migration agency said internal displacement within Haiti has tripled over the last year and n ow surpasses 1 million people. The situation has been largely caused by gang violence in the Caribbean country. The new figure provided by the International Organization for Migration represents a record for Haiti.