Haitian college student commits suicide after losing immigration status facing bullying for ICE ankle monitor
TheGrio...
Pierre Damas Bel dreamed of being a doctor, but the loss of TPS, an ICE ankle monitor, bullying and fears of deportation led him to suicide.
Just days after starting his first day of classes at Wright State University, Pierre Damas Bel, who came to the United States under Temporary Protective Status (TPS), took his own life. On August 31, the 20-year-old Haitian immigrant reportedly parked his car on the shoulder of the interstate in Springfield, Ohio, got out, and walked into incoming traffic, where he was hit by a tractor-trailer and ultimately pronounced dead on the scene.
According to local advocates, Bel’s suicide was done “out of shame from the ICE leg monitor and taunting from fellow students,” as reported by the Springfield News-Sun. The recent high school graduate was among the 350,000 Haitian immigrants living in the US impacted by the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation in late July.
Bel reunited with his parents, who also fled Haiti for safety in 2024 and had a pending asylum case. Before taking his life, the Wright State University student reportedly called his father, Pierres Ronal Bel, who remembers his son saying, “I’m not feeling okay.”
“He called me at 8:03 on a video call, [saying] I’m not feeling okay mentally because of the bullying, and I told him to come home so we can talk,” he shared in a statement. “Around 11, the Police showed up at my door to report that my son threw himself under a truck.”
According to Ronnal Bel, the 20-year-old had dreams of studying medicine after graduating high school this past May. A proud member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), Bel had hoped to continue the program. However, those aspirations were stunted when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers summoned him to a mandatory in-person “check-in” during which they fitted him with an ankle monitoring device. As previously reported by theGrio, hundreds of Haitians in Ohio received letters about this mandatory meeting during which they were given the option to either wear an ankle monitor that restricts them to a 75-mile radius around their permanent residence unless given permission by ICE officials or be deported back to Haiti with $2,600.
“He felt like he was treated like an animal,” Bel’s father shared, explaining how the device impacted his son’s morale as he navigated cruel remarks from classmates who saw the ankle monitor and his inability to play soccer, a sport he loved for years, due to its weight. However, last Friday the reality of his immigration status reached a pinnacle when the 20-year-old did not receive his JROTC uniform along with his classmates, a consequence he believed was linked to the monitoring device.
“He came home that day feeling very bad,” Ronal Bel told the Washington Post.
“I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone,” the late Bel wrote in an Instagram post shared in late July. “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.”
The fear of deportation is a feeling many immigrant communities across the country are facing. However, for Haitian communities, the reality of being sent back to the island is especially alarming as armed gangs continue to take over various parts of the country, posing security risks.
“The Supreme Court’s decision may have cleared the legal path for the administration to terminate TPS, but it does not make Haiti safe,” Guerline Jozef, Executive Director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, said in a statement. “The reality on the ground is undeniable: people are being killed, homes are being burned, communities are being overrun by armed gangs, and more than a million people have already been displaced. Just days ago, the United States sent more than 160 people back to Haiti while deliberately avoiding Port-au-Prince because of the security threat. We cannot say Haiti is too dangerous for a U.S. flight to land and simultaneously claim it is safe enough to send human beings there. What the Trump-Vance Administration is doing is cruel.”