Springfield, Ohio, Haitian student dies by suicide after ICE mandates ankle monitor following TPS loss

Pierre Damas Bel, 20, expressed feeling “shame and humiliation” at having to wear by an ankle monitor. The college student died by suicide days later.

Hours before Ohio college student and athlete Pierre Damas Bel took his own life Monday morning, he called his father for help.

It was around 8 a.m., and he was sitting inside his car on the side of Interstate 70, struggling mentally and emotionally with the shame of being forced to wear an ankle monitor by immigration officials. Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian student at Wright State University, said he had been bullied at school and felt “humiliated” by the device.

“I told him to come home so we can talk,” Bel’s father said in an emailed statement. “Around 11 the police showed at my door to report that my son threw himself under a truck.”

Bel stepped into oncoming traffic and died from his injuries, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said. His family blamed the humiliation brought on by the ankle monitor he had been wearing since July.

A photo shared by Wittenberg University of Pierre Damas Bel, a freshman soccer recruit who died after stepping into traffic in Springfield, Ohio on Aug. 31, 2026.Wittenberg UniversityCarl Ruby, a local pastor and immigration advocate, said in a statement that Bel’s family wanted people to know it was a suicide related to immigration policies.