Haitian student who died ‘felt like he was treated like an animal,’ father says

A Haitian college freshman who was fitted with an ankle monitor by federal immigration authorities after the Trump administration won a legal battle to strip temporary protected status from some 350,000 Haitians died this week by apparent suicide, according to his family.

Pierre Damas Bel, 20, parked his car on the shoulder of Interstate 70, a busy highway just outside his hometown of Springfield, Ohio, and was fatally hit by a tractor trailer from oncoming traffic just after 8:45 a.m. Monday, according to Ohio State Patrol.

His family believes his death was suicide. 

Bel, who had just begun his first semester studying neuroscience at Wright State University in nearby Dayton, Ohio, was co-captain of his high school soccer team and a lieutenant in the Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or JROTC.

In July, after the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end TPS for Haitians, Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel began requiring ankle monitors for some Haitians in Springfield whose status had expired after the ruling. That included Bel, who vented his frustration in a post on his Instagram account.

“I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience,” Bel wrote.

He posted photos of himself with an “Award of Excellence” scholarship, his high school diploma, his JROTC colleagues and his soccer team. The final image showed the ankle monitor gripped around his leg. 

At a press conference Tuesday evening, Bel’s father, Pierre Ronal Bel, spoke of the shame the ankle monitor had brought to his son. 

“After my son was outfitted with the ankle monitor, he felt like he was treated like an animal,” Bel’s father said, reading from a statement. “He took two trips to Cincinnati and Westerville to plead the officers to remove the bracelet, since he’s a soccer player and he felt embarrassed and humiliated when he’s among his classmates at the university.” 

Bel’s father said his son “was bullied a lot, with a lot of people telling him he’s a criminal.”

“August 28, 2026, he told me, ‘Dad, I felt humiliated since they gave uniforms to all of my classmates at J.R.O.T.C. Everyone got uniforms except for me because of the bracelet,” he said. 

On the morning of his Bel’s death, his father said he received a video call from his son, in which he said he was “not feeling OK” because of the bullying. The Ohio State Highway Patrol investigation into remains open, the agency said.

In a statement to MS NOW, Immigration and Customs Enforcement pushed back on any culpability for Bel’s death.

“Any attempt to blame ICE for the death of Pierre Damas Bel are FALSE,” an ICE spokesperson said in the statment. “No one is required to stay in the United States illegally and wear a GPS monitor. Illegal aliens have a lawful, voluntary option: they can self-deport through the CBP Home app.”

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Bel’s community mourned his death. 

Sue Edwards, the president of Wright State University, wrote in a statement: “We are heartbroken by this devastating loss. Pierre was an active honors student who was passionate about soccer and was already actively engaged in his classes and the campus community,”

Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine also mourned Bel’s death.

At a press conference in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday DeWine called ICE’s tactics “very misguided and wrong policy in regard to mass deporting people from this from this country,” and he said Bel’s death was a “horrible, horrible tragedy.” 

DeWine has been calling for legal avenues for Haitians to remain in Ohio after the Supreme Court decision earlier this summer.

“Do we want this being done, this mass deportation, in our name?” he said.

In July, as ICE began fitting Haitians with ankle monitors in Springfield, Viles Dorsainvil, the executive director of the Haitian Support Network and the de facto leader of the Haitian diaspora in Springfield, spoke about the effects of the tactics on the community’s mental health.

“We never really speak of the mental health crisis, but I think this is the main thing for our community,” Dorsainvil said. “The stress, the anxiety, the uncertainty, is very huge.”

He added: “I know young people who never stop crying by the fact that they go to college, but they don’t see a future for themselves here anymore. I always say that no human being should have faced that type of situation, but this is where we are as Haitians now, and it’s really sad to see that.”

Sydney Carruth

Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.