PIERRE DAMAS BEL
A lawful Haitian student in America commits suicide after his protected status is rescinded
By The Immigrant Times
Pierre Damas Bel graduated from Springfield High School in May 2026 and served in the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps. In July, following new immigration rules, he was fitted with an electronic ankle monitor. Four weeks later, he committed suicide.
September 2026: On the morning of 31 August 2026, a few weeks into his freshman year, Pierre Damas Bel pulled his car onto the shoulder of Interstate 70 outside Springfield, Ohio, and stepped into the path of an oncoming lorry. He was 20. His family and local residents say he took his own life because of the shame he felt at being forced by US immigration authorities to wear an electronic ankle monitor.
Pierre Damas Bel had just started his honours course in physiology and neuroscience at Wright State University in Ohio, was a decorated cadet in his school's military training programme, and had been recruited to play college football.
Pierre's death has become a milestone in the debate over the Trump administration's decision to withdraw Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from Haitians and citizens of a dozen other countries.
A young immigrant's promising future cut short by suicide
Pierre graduated from Springfield High School in May 2026, where he was a member of the National Honour Society, a lieutenant in the Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC), and co-captain of the varsity boys' football team.
He had been on track to study physiology and neuroscience in preparation for medical school and had posted photos from his first day of classes on 24 August.
Pierre arrived in the US in 2024 under a Biden-era, app-based scheme called CBP One, which allowed migrants to schedule appointments to enter the country lawfully. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that he had entered the country with government permission.
Before enrolling at Wright State, Pierre had been recruited to play football at nearby Wittenberg University. Wittenberg's men's football coach, Dwight Burgess, said in a statement that the university was excited about the prospect of Pierre joining its programme and campus community. The team's statement mourned "the loss of one of our own" after he was unable to play following the imposition of the ankle monitor.
Haitians in the US, who lose TPS protection, must wear ankle monitors
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was created by the US Congress in 1990 to allow people from countries affected by war or disaster to live and work in the US without fear of deportation, but it does not offer a path to citizenship. Haiti was first designated for TPS after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake in January 2010, which killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than a million others.
Successive administrations extended the designation as Haiti's gangs took control of large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, amid a near-total collapse of state authority.
The second Trump administration repeatedly sought to end Haiti's TPS from 2025 onwards, but federal courts blocked each attempt. That changed on 25 June 2026, when the Supreme Court, in Mullin v. Doe (named for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin), ruled 6–3 that courts cannot review the Secretary's decisions to terminate a country's TPS designation on non-constitutional grounds. Haiti's TPS designation, and the roughly 350,000 work permits tied to it, formally lapsed on 27 July 2026.
Haitians without another legal basis to remain were told to report to ICE offices; those living near Springfield were directed to facilities in Blue Ash or Westerville (Ohio). Many, including Pierre, were enrolled in ICE's 'alternatives to detention' programme and fitted with GPS ankle monitors rather than being held in custody.
Pierre received his on 29 July, while his removal case continued. He and his family say the device sidelined him from football, prevented him from receiving a new JROTC uniform, and led to bullying from classmates.
The day before his death, protesters in Springfield marched under the banner 'Unshackle Springfield'; advocates say the monitors evoke for many Haitians the shackles of slavery.
Ankle monitors cause shame and humiliation
On 30 July, Pierre posted on Instagram about the toll the monitor was taking. "I didn't come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone," he wrote, adding that he was left "carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation I never imagined I would feel."
On the morning he died, he telephoned his father, Pierre Ronal Bel, in evident distress. "He said, 'Dad, I'm not feeling ok. I'm not thinking right … because of the bullies,' and I told him, 'Come home so that we can talk,'" his father recalled in a statement.
The sorrow of family and friends shared by the Republican state governor
Wright State's president, Sue Edwards, said the university was "heartbroken by this devastating loss" and made counselling available to students and staff, though it said it had no confirmed record of bullying complaints linked to the monitor.
A planned on-campus vigil was postponed at the family's request; another, organised separately by the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Ohio chapter, drew mourners to Columbus City Hall two days after Pierre's death.
A larger vigil was held at Springfield City Hall on 12 September, with more than 80 people gathering. "Pierre should still be here," said Michaelle Louis, an organiser with the local group Undivided.
Within Springfield's Haitian community, friends described a young man who had gone out of his way to prove his respectability. "Pierre Damas Bel was not a criminal, but he was treated as one," said Yola Lamarre, a friend and mentor, who added that it had become customary for him to keep explaining, unprompted, that he had done nothing wrong.
Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has for months criticised the Trump administration's approach to Haitian migration in his state while continuing to support its broader border policy.
Speaking to reporters the day after Pierre's death, he called it "a horrible, horrible tragedy" and said of the policy of detaining and monitoring people like Pierre: "Is it really wise to… look at someone like that and say, you know, we're gonna kick you out of the country, put an ankle monitor on you?"
The Department of Homeland Security, through ICE, declined to comment on the cause of death as Ohio State Highway Patrol's investigation continues. It confirmed the basic facts of Pierre's entry and monitoring and pointed to what it describes as a voluntary alternative: people without lawful status can leave the country via the CBP Home app, receiving a government-arranged flight and, the agency says, a payment of $2,600, confirmed after departure.
Carl Ruby, a Springfield pastor who has met regularly with regional ICE officials on behalf of the Haitian community, said he left one such meeting believing enforcement was intended to pressure people into leaving. "We're going to make life as miserable as possible," he said officials told him.
Springfield's Haitian community falsely vilified by Trump
Springfield's Haitian population, estimated at 12,000 to 15,000 at its height, though locally reckoned to have fallen since, grew after city officials began actively courting immigrant labour in the early 2010s to reverse decades of industrial decline.
The city and its Haitian residents were thrust into the international spotlight in September 2024 when then-candidate Donald Trump repeated a baseless internet rumour during a presidential debate that Haitian migrants there were eating residents' pets.
The claim, which followed local tensions after a Haitian driver caused a school-bus crash that killed an 11-year-old, was widely discredited but prompted bomb threats against schools and government buildings and made Springfield synonymous, in much of the US media, with migration politics.
That history has shaped how Pierre's death is being interpreted. Advocacy groups, including the migrant-led network Alianza Americas, have called the case emblematic of what they term a policy of deliberate cruelty, citing an administration count of thirteen countries, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Honduras, Nepal, Somalia, Syria and Venezuela, whose TPS has been terminated, with only El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine still designated.
Washington Republicans split over Trump's Haiti policy
Pierre's case has revealed a genuine split among Republicans over Haiti policy, distinct from the party's general support for stricter immigration enforcement.
In April 2026, ten House of Representatives (Lower House) Republicans crossed party lines to help pass a three-year extension of Haiti's TPS, 224–204, before the Senate and White House allowed it to lapse.
Representative Mike Lawler of New York, who backed the extension, said after the Mullin ruling that he did not dispute the president's authority to end TPS but "strongly disagree[d] with ending Haitian TPS at this time," citing the continued gang control of Port-au-Prince and the number of Haitian TPS holders working in American nursing homes and hospitals. The administration and its allies counter that TPS, created as a temporary measure, had been extended for Haiti for sixteen years and was never intended to become permanent.
What now?
Ohio State Highway Patrol's investigation into the crash remains open. Wright State has not issued any findings on the bullying allegations. Pierre's family, through Pastor Ruby, has said it wants his death understood as linked to immigration policy rather than treated as an isolated tragedy.
For the roughly 350,000 people who lost Haiti's TPS in July, and for the hundreds of thousands more from other terminated countries, the choice the administration presents remains the same as the one Pierre faced: pursue a legal case with uncertain prospects while wearing a monitor, or leave under the government's self-deportation scheme for a country the US State Department itself advises Americans not to visit.
Sources and methodology
This article draws on reporting from CNN, NBC News, CBS News, NPR, Fox News, the Ohio Capital Journal, the Dayton Daily News, the Springfield News-Sun, WHIO, WKBN, WDTN, WYSO, America Magazine, and the National Catholic Reporter, together with statements from Wright State University, Wittenberg University, the Ohio governor's office, ICE/DHS, CAIR-Ohio, and Alianza Americas, and US Supreme Court and USCIS records on Mullin v. Doe and the Haiti TPS termination.
A note on terminology
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a US immigration category distinct from asylum or permanent residency; it grants temporary protection from removal and the right to work, subject to periodic renewal by the Secretary of Homeland Security. People who held TPS and have since lost it are not 'illegal' in the sense of having entered unlawfully. Pierre Damas Bel, for instance, entered under a sanctioned government scheme, but many are now without current authorisation to remain, a status this article refers to as 'irregular' rather than 'illegal,' in keeping with our house style.
Further reading from The Immigrant Times: Haitians in the US fear deportation || Separation of children under Trump || Immigrant detention reaches record level under Trump || American cities, and mayors confront Trump over immigration ||
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