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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nBel \u2014 a member of the Marine Corps Junior ROTC and the National Honor Society \u2014 had left no note communicating his intentions.<\/p>\n
However, his father said in an Aug. 31 interview that \u201ceverything changed\u201d once his son had been fitted with an ankle monitor by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could terminate Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, designation for Haiti.<\/p>\n
The deportation protection, created by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, provides deportation protections for those from Homeland Security-designated countries experiencing ongoing crises, such as war and environmental disasters. More than 330,000 Haitians in the U.S. had TPS protection as of 2025.<\/p>\n
In a statement to CBS affiliate WKBN in Springfield, a DHS spokesperson confirmed ICE had been notified of Bel\u2019s death by Ohio State Highway Patrol, describing Bel as \u201ca non-detained illegal alien from Haiti.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agency declined to comment on Bel\u2019s cause of death, but confirmed it had fitted Bel \u2014 who had applied for admission to the U.S. under the former CBP One mobile app in March 2024, three years after his parents\u2019 arrival \u2014 with an ankle monitor on July 29.<\/p>\n
The monitor was part of Bel\u2019s placement in an \u201calternatives to detention program \u2026 while he continued in his immigration proceedings,\u201d said the spokesperson.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one is required to stay in the United States illegally and wear a monitor,\u201d said the DHS spokesperson, adding that \u201cremaining in the country illegally, while fighting removal, is a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet Bel was scheduled for an October asylum court hearing, according to his father, Pierre Ronal Bel.<\/p>\n
The family attended a Sept. 1 press conference held at Central Christian Church in Springfield, home to an extensive Haitian community.<\/p>\n
The town had gained national attention during President Donald Trump\u2019s second-term presidential campaign, when in 2024 both Trump and then-Sen. (now Vice President) JD Vance repeated false claims that area\u2019s Haitian immigrants stole and ate residents\u2019 pets.<\/p>\n
During the Sept. 1 press conference, Central Christian pastor Carl Ruby read a statement from the elder Bel, who said his son \u201cfelt like he was treated like an animal\u201d after being shackled with the ankle monitor.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe took two trips to Cincinnati and Westerville to plead (with) the officers to remove the bracelet since he\u2019s a soccer player and he felt embarrassed and humiliated,\u201d said Bel in his statement. \u201cWhen he\u2019s among his classmates at the university \u2026 he was bullied a lot with a lot of people telling him he\u2019s a criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to his death, the younger Bel had admitted feeling \u201cshame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience\u201d due to the ankle monitor.<\/p>\n
In a July 30 Instagram post, Bel wrote, \u201cI came to this country to pursue my education. I didn\u2019t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I\u2019m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg.\u201d<\/p>\n
His post included multiple images of his high school graduation, sports and JROTC activities, along with his award of excellence from a business advisory council and a social media graphic indicating his intention to study neuroscience.<\/p>\n
Bel wrote that the ankle monitor prevented him from playing college sports, and said, \u201cI came here to study, to build my future \u2026 not to be treated like (a) criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Philadelphia, the faith-based New Sanctuary Movement \u2014 an immigrant advocacy nonprofit based on Catholic social teaching \u2014 planned a Sept. 3 vigil honoring Bel and calling on the U.S. Senate to pass S.B. 4814, which would require the secretary of Homeland Security to designate Haiti for TPS.<\/p>\n
Archbishop Wenski has also urged passage of the bill, telling OSV News the U.S. should \u201crethink\u201d ending Haitian deportation protections, as the Caribbean nation continues to grapple with long-running violence, including an Aug. 23 massacre that saw more than 47 killed and at least 50 kidnapped.<\/p>\n
Bel\u2019s death \u201cis not an isolated tragedy,\u201d the New Sanctuary Movement said in a Sept. 2 statement announcing the vigil. \u201cWhat we are witnessing is a politics of death, a system in which human life itself becomes disposable, contingent, revocable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The organization described what it called \u201ctwo registers of violence\u201d against migrants, with the first \u201cdirect\u201d and resulting in immediate harm, and the second \u201cslower, but no less lethal,\u201d since \u201coperates through fear \u2014 fear of family separation, fear of return to danger, fear of a future that no longer exists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second violence claimed Pierre Damas Bel,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
Archbishop Wenski, whose archdiocese is home to an extensive Haitian and Haitian-American community, described Bel\u2019s apparent suicide as \u201ccertainly tragic \u2014 as are all suicides.\u201d<\/p>\n
In particular, said the archbishop, \u201cPierre\u2019s suicide was a \u2018death of despair.’\u201d<\/p>\n
While \u201clife in the United States offered him a future of hope,\u201d said Archbishop Wenski, \u201clooming deportation to Haiti seemingly conspired to deny him that future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.<\/p>\n
NOTES: If you or a loved one are experiencing thoughts of suicide or self-harm, call or text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or call 911.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
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Haitian-born Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old honors student at at Wright State University in Greene…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kabarsula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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