The grainy security footage from the Pittsburgh transit authority shows Daphy Michel seated on a steel bench. She had been released hours earlier from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, and temperatures that night would dip to freezing. The 31-year-old asylum seeker wore a hooded sweatshirt to keep herself warm.
Over the course of three days, Michel appears to have never left that bench, said her family’s attorney, who viewed the security footage and shared stills with The Washington Post. She had a history of untreated mental health issues and sat staring as people passed by, a plastic bag with her belongings, including a cellphone, placed beside her.
By March 2, the Haitian woman was no longer sitting. The last image captured in the footage, according to the attorney, shows her lying on the ground. Emergency responders arrived at the scene and transferred Michel to a hospital, where she died that day.
It was at least the second death this year involving an individual who was released by federal immigration authorities and died days later of complications related to hypothermia. The Allegheny County medical examiner’s office ruled Michel’s death a homicide on Friday. That conclusion means officials determined her death was the result of someone else’s actions, but it does not necessarily imply criminal wrongdoing.
“The opinion of the forensic pathologist in this case is that Ms. Michel was a vulnerable adult, suffering from untreated severe mental health issues and a significant language barrier when she was released from federal custody on February 27,” Jim Madalinsky, the county’s public information officer, said in a statement. “Based on all available information during the investigation, the pathologist ruled Ms. Michel’s death a homicide.”
The finding comes as ICE is eliminating its requirement to report deaths that occur within 30 days of people being released from its custody, and as the Trump administration continues to detain large numbers of migrants. Michel entered the country through the southern border in 2022 and was granted humanitarian parole, said her family’s attorney, Joseph Patrick Murphy. She died before the first hearing in her immigration case.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not say what time agents released Michel on Feb. 27 but stated that she had all her possessions and a fully charged phone. That day, temperatures in Pittsburgh reached a high of about 55 degrees, though they dropped nearly 30 degrees at night before a cold front brought flurries later that weekend, according to airport weather data.
“ICE had NOTHING to do with this woman’s death,” DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis said. “She passed away THREE days after ICE encountered her.”
The circumstances of Michel’s death echo those of the death of a visually impaired refugee in Buffalo in February. Immigration agents left Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, a Rohingya refugee from Myanmar who spoke little English, outside a closed coffee shop on a cold winter night. His body was found days later and his death also was ruled a homicide.
The investigation of Alam’s death is ongoing.
It’s unclear whether Pennsylvania officials will open an investigation of what happened to Michel days before her death. The Allegheny County district attorney’s office said in a statement that it is still gathering records and declined to comment on any possible investigation.
“We do express our heartfelt sympathy to the family of Ms. Michel,” officials with the prosecutor’s office said.
Guerline Jozef of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrant advocacy organization, said Michel came to the country at a time of massive domestic upheaval in the Caribbean nation following the assassination of its president. Armed groups violently took control of the nation’s capital while Haiti experienced a series of natural disasters that displaced thousands.
Thousands of Haitians fled to South America and, eventually, the United States. Many, like Michel, were allowed to enter during the Biden administration while pursuing asylum claims but were targeted for removal once President Donald Trump took office.
Jozef said that given Michel’s mental health struggles, ICE could have ensured she was in contact with a relative before her release.
“We know that, allegedly, ICE is saying that they are not responsible. But we beg to differ,” she said. “There are certain protocols they could’ve taken to make sure she was released into her family and community safely,” Jozef said. “None of that happened.”
ICE detention standards require agents to prioritize safety and consider “any special vulnerabilities” when deciding when, where and how to release someone. Agents are instructed to provide detainees with a free phone call to make arrangements and are permitted to leave people near public transportation during operating hours.
The guidelines also say ICE “must provide transportation” to detainees who “are not reasonably able to walk” because of issues such as age and mental health, or any conditions that endanger health and safety.
In September, local authorities arrested Michel on charges of making terroristic threats and harassment, court records show. Charleroi regional police alleged she had been yelling in the street at “imaginary people,” according to Murphy. He said Michel struggled with undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. She remained in jail for six months. Then a judge dismissed her case, Murphy said, because she could not be prosecuted for making threats against people who did not exist.
A day later, ICE agents took her into custody, affixed a tracking monitor to her ankle and released her.
“She was released with all of her belongings, including a fully charged phone, in sunny weather in the middle of Pittsburgh, where public transport is readily available,” said Bis, the DHS spokeswoman.
Murphy said Michel lived with her brother, who never received a phone call from ICE or his sister alerting him of her release. It wasn’t until the morgue contacted him three days later that Michel’s brother learned what had happened. He declined to comment through the attorney.
Michel underwent repeated psychiatric examinations while at the county jail, Murphy said. When the judge ordered her release, Washington County authorities contacted ICE. It was unclear whether county officials communicated what they knew about Michel’s mental state to immigration agents. The county jail did not respond to requests for comment.
Murphy believes it was “outrageous” and grossly negligent for ICE to have released Michel by herself on a winter day.
“Even a 10-year-old could do more to help themselves,” he said. “She couldn’t speak English and she was effectively unable to care for herself.”
An obituary for Michel shared on the website for Hogan-Melenyzer Funeral Home & Cremation Services says that she was born in Aquin, a port city on Haiti’s southern coast. After arriving in the United States, she settled in Charleroi, a community where about 1,200 Haitians had come to live in recent years. Now, according to local media reports, only a few hundred remain, driven away by fear over the immigration crackdown and the closure of several businesses.
“Daphy was a person with a kind heart, who loved her family very much,” the obituary says. “… She was always ready to help those who needed her help and her presence brought joy and happiness and light into the lives of all who knew her.”
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