A young man leaves home

Pierre Damas Bel, twenty years old, left his Springfield, Ohio home on the morning of August thirty-first without saying goodbye. His stepmother had boiled eggs for breakfast, but he did not answer when she called.

A call for help

At eight oh three a m, Bel called his father, Pierre Ronal, on video and said he wasn't feeling okay. His father told him to come home so they could talk.

Highway patrol arrives

Hours later, highway patrol officers arrived at the family's home holding Bel's driver's license. They told his stepmother, Landy St. Juste, that he was dead.

Struck by a tractor-trailer

Bel had walked into oncoming traffic on Interstate seventy and was fatally struck by a tractor-trailer. He left no apparent suicide note.

Protected status suddenly ended

Like his father, stepmother, and teenage brother Bradley, Bel had benefitted from Temporary Protected Status, fleeing gang violence and political instability in Haiti. The Trump Administration ended the program for Haitians in July.

Three hundred fifty thousand left vulnerable

When Temporary Protected Status ended, approximately three hundred fifty thousand Haitians were left suddenly vulnerable to deportation. Bel had arrived in the United States from Haiti in twenty twenty-four.

ICE orders Bel to report

Only Bel received a letter from ICE asking him to report to the Cincinnati office. ICE fitted him with an ankle monitor as part of its Alternatives to Detention program.

Monitors surge seventy percent

The number of ankle monitors actively used in immigration enforcement has increased more than seventy percent in the past year, according to data made public by ICE.

Like an animal, he felt

Bel's father said the ankle monitor made his son feel like an animal and that he'd been bullied by peers telling him he's a criminal.

“like an animal”

Dreams of becoming a doctor

Bel had been recruited by Wittenberg University to play soccer. He enrolled in the honors program at Wright State University, planning to study physiology and neuroscience to become a doctor.

Lost eligibility for R.O.T.C.

After losing Temporary Protected Status, Bel was not eligible to continue in his high school's junior R.O.T.C. program. He had only completed a week of college classes before his death.

Seeking F-one student status

On July twenty-ninth, Bel emailed Wright State's University Center for International Education asking what options he had to obtain F-one student status while remaining in the United States.

Terror and dread in Springfield

Springfield is home to an estimated twelve thousand to fifteen thousand Haitians. Since Temporary Protected Status ended, ICE has conducted regular sweeps, detaining dozens including three pastors. People fear leaving their homes.

The monitor was tightened further

Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, explained that Bel's ankle monitor was uncomfortably hot. When he went to ICE for a check-in in early August, an agent tightened it even more.

Killed by the system

At the funeral, Guerline Jozef said, Our dear friend and brother might have died by suicide, but he was killed by the system. Bel had watched the future he imagined thrown into uncertainty.

“Our dear friend and brother might have died by suicide, but he was killed by the system”

Trump rallies as Bel is buried

A few hours after Bel was buried, President Trump held a rally in nearby Vandalia. He recited Oscar Brown Junior's The Snake and said of Springfield's Haitians, They're all being brought back to their country.

“They're all being brought back to their country”

A shrine awaits what comes next

In Bel's home, his bedroom has become a shrine with an unmade bed and a crisply ironed white shirt and tie. His family and thousands of other Haitian immigrants await what comes next.