President Donald Trump celebrated the removal of Haitians from Springfield, Ohio, on Saturday — just hours after mourners gathered 25 miles away to bury a young Haitian immigrant, according to a new report in The Bulwark.
The contrast drew a scathing assessment from writers Andrew Egger and Jim Swift, who attended both events.
“They buried Pierre Damas Bel on Saturday. That night, Donald Trump came to town to take a victory lap on the policies that killed him,” the journalists wrote Monday.
Bel, 20, arrived legally in the United States in 2024. According to the report, he died by suicide after the administration revoked his legal status this summer.
At his funeral, Haitian Bridge Alliance executive director Guerline Jozef said: “Our dear friend and brother may have died by suicide. But he was killed by the system.”
Hours later, at Trump’s rally in Vandalia, about 25 miles west of Springfield, the president dedicated his reading of “The Snake” — a poem he uses to attack immigration — to Springfield.
“It was an idyllic place,” he told rallygoers. “Was, is the better word. Not anymore, but it soon will be. They’re all being brought back to their country.”
The Bulwark reported Monday that the crowd grinned, laughed and chanted: “Deport! Deport! Deport!”
Before the rally, some MAGA supporters expressed reservations. Joe Brafford praised Trump’s border crackdown but questioned removing Haitians previously granted protection.
“So I don’t know how you in good conscience can just kick them all out,” he told The Bulwark. “It really is a dilemma.”
Bel had reportedly hoped to study neuroscience and eventually open a hospital in Haiti, according to speakers at his funeral.
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