MIAMI - Vice President Joe Biden told Haitian-American and political leaders Saturday that rebuilding Haiti in the wake of a devastating earthquake would remain a priority for the U.S. long after the story fades from the headlines.

"Our message is simple," Biden said during his stop in South Florida, which has the largest Haitian-American population in the U.S. "We are there to rescue. We are there to secure. We will be there to provide. We will rebuild, and we will sustain."

Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met with more than two-dozen Haitian-American leaders at the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami to discuss aid after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake crushed Haiti on Tuesday.

The vice president promised Haiti "will still be on our radar screen long after it's off of CNN crawler."

"This is personal," Biden added, touching the arm of White House political director Patrick Gaspard, a Haitian-American who has lost family in the Caribbean nation.

Biden, his wife, Napolitano and others then met with the archbishop and other church employees in a chapel of Notre-Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church a few blocks away.

The Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary opened and closed the meeting with a prayer remembering those killed in the earthquake. He urged the vice president to support the Miami Archdiocese's desires to rescue Haitian children orphaned by the disaster and bring them to the U.S.

Biden and Napolitano later visited Homestead Air Reserve Base, where relief supplies are being flown out to the country. Air Force officials said that more than 150 planes carrying supplies have launched from the base to the Caribbean since Tuesday's quake.

Biden, who was in Louisiana on Friday, compared the devastation in Haiti to that caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And he emphasized Americans' desire to help, noting that residents from Lake Charles, La. - among the areas hardest hit by Katrina - were already asking how to help.

"We're not just trying to restore Haiti's past," he said. "We are committed so that the people of Haiti can look their children in the eye and say, 'We have a better future.'"

Napolitano, at the base, urged those who want to help not to charter their own planes, because Haitian airspace is already clogged. She also said cash donations would help aid groups pay for transportation and much-needed supplies.

Napolitano stressed that the temporary protective status granted to Haitians in the U.S. would not apply to those currently in the island nation. She said Haitians should not attempt to flee to the U.S., saying that it will hamper the rescue and aid efforts under way, and that they will be immediately returned.

Napolitano said the department still could not estimate a death toll, "but it will be more lives than we can bear."

Haiti's government alone has thus far recovered 20,000 bodies - not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said. He said a final toll of 100,000 dead would "seem to be the minimum."