02/09/2026
OHIO HAITIAN STUDENT TAKES HIS OWN LIFE AFTER BEING FITTED WITH ICE ANKLE MONITOR.
20-year-old Pierre Damas Bel called his father on video. “I’m not feeling okay mentally because of the bullying,” Pierre told him. His father told him to come home so they could talk.
Pierre never made it home.
Less than an hour later, Pierre parked his car on the shoulder of Interstate 70 outside Springfield, Ohio, got out, and walked into traffic. A tractor-trailer struck and killed him.
Thirty-three days earlier, ICE had put a GPS monitor around Pierre’s ankle. Pierre told people what it was doing to him. “I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone.”
He wrote that walking around with the monitor left him feeling “shame and humiliation” and asked how he was supposed to play college sports with it strapped to his leg.
Pierre had graduated from Springfield High School with a 3.8 GPA, belonged to the National Honor Society, played varsity soccer, served as a lieutenant in Marine Corps JROTC, worked at Texas Roadhouse, volunteered, helped other students learn English, earned scholarships, and had just started at Wright State University to study neuroscience.
His teachers, employer, and coworkers wrote letters begging the immigration court to let him stay. A retired Marine captain gave Pierre his “highest endorsement,” praising his Honor, Courage, and Commitment.
“It is my sincere hope that Mr. Bel has the opportunity to see his plans come to fruition, much as all young men and women his age should have the opportunity to do,” the teacher wrote. “I have no doubt that given the opportunity, he will only continue to deepen and broaden not only in his personal growth, but also in his dedication to the city, state, and country that he has chosen to make his home.”
Pierre did everything America tells immigrants to do. Learn English. Work. Study. Serve. Volunteer. Stay out of trouble. Go to college. Build a future. And after he did all of it, America put an electronic tracking device around his ankle and made him walk through the community he had worked so hard to join.
After Pierre died, his father said, “The government treated my son like an animal.”
ICE responded by confirming it had placed Pierre on electronic monitoring on July 29, then explaining that people fighting removal don’t have to stay here and wear monitors.
They can self-deport, take a government-arranged flight, and collect $2,600 after leaving. Pierre was dead at twenty; his father was grieving, and the agency that put the monitor on his ankle essentially responded: He could have left.
Pastor Carl Ruby of Central Christian Church wrote on social media that Bel threw himself in front of a semi “after being teased by fellow students at Wright State about his ankle monitor.”
“I wish President Trump could hear the mom’s wails. The family wants people to know that this was a su***de and they want people to know that President Trump, (Stephen) Miller, and Markwayne Mullin’s inhumane immigration policies made this happen,” Ruby wrote.
On July 30, Bel posted a 20-photo Instagram carousel highlighting his awards, diploma, plans to study neuroscience at Wright State University, soccer team, and the electronic monitor around his ankle.
“I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone,” he captioned the post. “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.
I came here to study, to build my future, and to live a better life, not to be treated like a criminal. So now, how am I supposed to play college sports with a GPS monitor on my leg?”
Bel posted outfit photos of his first day of classes at Wright State on Aug. 24.
The semi truck driver called 911, telling the dispatcher a man “got out of his car and jumped right out in front of my semi.” The driver said the man was “under my truck.”
“He jumped right out in front of me. Oh my God; I killed him,” the driver said.
