Long Island's Haitian community is outraged over how the president reportedly described their country.

“I was shocked … disbelief,” says Marie Senat, of Deer Park.

Senat arrived in the U.S. from Haiti 20 years ago. Today, she's a nurse practitioner who also owns a restaurant and is launching a cosmetics business. She says the president's reported derogatory comments about Haiti and other nations are incredibly damaging, because they send the wrong message about why people want to come to the U.S. in the first place.

“The world is looking at him,” says Senat. “For him to make that type of statement ... it's so brutal. It’s so unfair to the Haitian community.”

Many are disgusted by the president's reported remarks, which he denies making. The Congressional Black Caucus is even threatening to bring a censure resolution against the president. And group of immigrant advocates joined with Haitian-American Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages to blast the president in Hempstead today.

“What the president said was ignorant and intolerable, and he owes the citizens of Haiti, Nigeria, El Salvador and all the TPS countries an apology,” said Solages.

There are some who are defending the president's reported remarks, including commenters on the News 12 Long Island Facebook page.

Senat disagrees with those commenters, though.

“I think he's talking about the people that want to come here,” Senat said. “The people that seek a better life, who want to leave Haiti to come here and then build something.”