Haitian who just graduated high school takes his own life after losing TPS status, advocacy group says
Family members say the 20-year-old student was bullied after losing Temporary Protected Status, as Ohio authorities investigate the death.
- On Monday, August 31, 2026, 20-year-old Wright State University student Pierre Damas Bel died after stepping into traffic on Interstate 70 near Springfield, Ohio. Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers responded at mile marker 66.
- In late July, Immigration and Customs Enforcement fitted Bel with an ankle monitor while he awaited immigration proceedings. Family members say the device caused significant distress, bullying, and humiliation at his new university.
- Ohio Governor Mike DeWine addressed the tragedy on Tuesday, calling Bel's death a "horrible, horrible tragedy." DeWine stated the approach to rescinding Temporary Protected Status for Haitians is "very misguided and wrong."
- Following the tragedy, Pastor Carl Ruby of the Central Christian Church urged legislators to "put an end to the shackling program" before more lives are lost. Advocates in Springfield protested the ICE monitoring policy.
- While the Supreme Court recently allowed the administration to proceed with ending Temporary Protected Status, ICE officials maintain ankle monitors are a necessary "alternatives to detention" program. Advocates estimate hundreds of Haitians in Springfield received monitors in recent weeks.
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Haitian Student Dies By Suicide In Ohio Following ICE Ankle Monitor, Family Says - Tampa Free Press
A 20-year-old Haitian native and college student died by suicide on Monday outside Springfield, Ohio, according to state authorities and his family. The Ohio Highway Patrol reported that Pierre Damas Bel pulled his vehicle onto the right shoulder of a highway and walked into oncoming traffic, where he was hit by a tractor-trailer. “Bel succumbed […] Haitian Student Dies By Suicide In Ohio Following ICE Ankle Monitor, Family Says
Haitian Student Dies After ICE Ankle Monitor Order in Ohio
A 20-year-old Haitian college student in Springfield, Ohio, stepped into oncoming traffic on Interstate 70 and died, and his family says the shame of wearing an ICE-issued ankle monitor drove him to it. Pierre Damas Bel called his father from his car on the shoulder of I-70 around 8 a.m. Monday, August 31. He told his father he felt humiliated by the GPS ankle monitor that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had strapped to his leg two days earl…
Pierre Damas Bel, a brilliant 20-year-old student, denounced the harassment he had suffered since the immigration agency put the monitor on him before throwing himself at a truck on a highway in Ohio.
Pierre Damas Bel arrived in the United States using the now-defunct CBP One program, which allowed people to schedule immigration appointments at the border to apply for asylum. He died two years later in an apparent suicide, struck by a truck on an Ohio interstate highway, after being detained by ICE and forced to wear an ankle monitor. His family blames an immigration policy “that treated him like an animal.”
Family members of a 20-year-old Haitian student who committed suicide on Monday in Ohio, U.S.A., attributed on Wednesday part of the young man’s reasons to the “humiliation” he felt by wearing an Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) location device on his ankle, according to local media.
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