Ankle monitor, loss of TPS blamed for Haitian college student's death

After Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian immigrant and aspiring college soccer player, was fitted with an electronic ankle monitor, he took to Instagram to lament about the humiliation of being shackled.

He came to the United States, he wrote, to “study and build my future,” not to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet, he said, he was forced to walk the streets of Springfield, Ohio, where he was living, as if he were a criminal.

“How am I supposed to play college sports with a GPS monitor on my leg?” he wrote.

On Monday, a month after the July 31 post and weeks after losing his temporary protection against deportation to Haiti along with more than 300,000 Haitians across the United States, Bel drove onto a busy Interstate 70 near Springfield, pulled his car onto the shoulder and walked into traffic.

Minutes later, he was dead. He had taken his own life, his family said.

In a statement read at a news conference on Tuesday, Pierres Ronal Bel said his son had called him at 8:03 a.m. and said, “Dad, I am not feeling OK.” He had cited being bullied because of the ankle monitor.

“I told him, ‘Come, come home so that we can talk,’” the elder Bel said. At around 11 a.m., he said, police showed up at the family’s home and told him “that my son had thrown himself under a truck.”

Damas Bel had just started college and was enrolled in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a federally funded character development and citizenship program sponsored by the U.S. military. Three days prior to his death, his college classmates had received their ROTC uniforms, but he did not, because of the ankle monitor, the elder Bel said. The device also interfered with his son’s aspirations as an athlete, he said.

“Since he was a soccer player, he felt embarrassed and humiliated,” the elder Bel said. “He was bullied a lot.”

Damas Bel’s death has shaken not only his family and Springfield, where members of the community on Tuesday denounced the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown as dehumanizing, but Haitians elsewhere in the U.S.

Suicide is considered taboo in Haitian culture. Yet, the loss of Temporary Protected Status, which the U.S. Supreme Court allowed to end and which had permitted immigrants to live and work legally in the U.S., is creating a mental health crisis amid fears of being detained and being fitted with the electronic monitors.

“Pierre was a beautiful young man, smart, kind,” said the Rev. Carl Ruby, who organized the news conference on behalf of Springfield G92, a coalition of churches, clergy and faith advocates across Ohio. “It was immigration policy that took his life.”

Ruby said the family including Damas Bel’s two younger brothers, who are afraid of being sent back to Haiti. Though they did not want to politicize what had happened, Ruby added, “the only solution is a political solution.”

Yola Lamarre, a friend of Damas Bel’s, said he had spoken to her about his fears before taking his own life.

“A lot of Haitians that are here just like Pierre Damas Bel are here to contribute, not to take away,” she said, responding to people who say temporary status is meant to be temporary and Haitians should return to their unstable homeland. “Pierre Damas Bel was not a criminal, but he was treated like one.”

The Trump administration “has blood on its hands,” Lamarre said. “There is nothing just about this policy. There is nothing just about shackling people that have never committed a crime. This was his continuous statement to me on the phone. It’s ridiculous.... It’s time for people to wake up. This has nothing to do about immigration enforcement when you’re dehumanizing people, you’re putting chains on people.”

The equipping of Haitians with the electronic ankle bracelets has coincided with the end of Temporary Protected Status. Haitians in Springfield were among the first to receive Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in letters and after arriving at the ICE field office in Cincinnati were fitted with the monitors.

Advocates say while the letters are no longer being sent, Haitians are still getting the ankle monitors if they are lucky enough to get bond after being detained by ICE.

“People are not evil,” said Vilés Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield. “Enough is enough, and we call upon the American people to stand for what is right. This is a fight for human lives and for human beings. Please, you have to do something for those people; they are suffering.”

Dorsainvil said equipping former Haitian TPS holders with the electronic ankle monitors, has been particularly devastating for young Haitians like Demas Bel, who are trying to attend school and participate in sports while also navigating the immigration system.

Twice, he said, Pierre had pleaded with ICE to remove the monitor because it interfered with his ability to play college soccer.

“He really felt uncomfortable with it,” Dorsainvil said. “Other students were teasing him.”

Damas Bel’s death, he and other community leaders say, underscores the human toll of the Trump administration’s policies. The day before Pierre’s death, faith leaders from across the U.S. gathered in Springfield, where they rallied for the release of two Haitian pastors detained by ICE following the end of TPS.

They fault not just the Trump administration’s crackdown, but also successive Haitian governments whose poor leadership has failed to create the necessary security and economic conditions that would allow Haitians to remain in their homeland.

“This is one of the most feared and tragic outcomes of the Trump administration’s cruel and inhumane attacks on the Haitian community,” said Guerline Jozef, co-founder of the advocay group Haitian Bridge Alliance. “This administration and every single person who have agreed to take away the much-needed legal status of Haitian TPS holder in spite of the extreme condition in Haiti is fully responsible for the tragic death.”

Like Dorsainvil, Jozef is also supporting the family, which after Pierre’s death had to pay to tow his car from the highway.

Pierre arrived in the U.S. in 2023, two years after his parents, and moved to Springfield in 2024. Though he didn’t speak English when he arrived, he quickly learned and excelled, graduating from high school with a 3.8 GPA, Jozef said. He had just started college and had hoped to one day become a neuroscientist.

“Executive orders, Supreme Court rulings may happen inside of offices, but they have real consequences in our communities,” Jozef said, “and in this case have taken the life of Pierre Damas Bel.”