He was a gifted student, a standout soccer player and a proud cadet in his high school’s J.R.O.T.C. program.
But, his family says, he grew increasingly despondent and humiliated by the ankle monitor he was forced to wear. Not because he was charged with a crime but because he was a Haitian immigrant whose legal status disappeared.
On Monday morning, he walked into oncoming highway traffic outside Springfield, Ohio, and was struck and killed by a truck. Though it is difficult to identify a single cause behind a suicide, his family says the electronic tracking device led Pierre Damas Bel, 20, to lose hope and take his life.
Mr. Bel did not appear to leave behind an explanation of what led him to the side of I-70 in Clark County. But his father and people who knew him described him as a devoted son who had been thriving and excited about studying neuroscience and building a life in the United States.
“Everything was fine with him before this happened,” his father, Pierre Ronal Bel, said in an interview on Monday. “They put an ankle monitor on him and everything changed.”
The Ohio State Highway Patrol said an investigation was ongoing. The county coroner’s office said it would take several weeks for the cause of death to be released.
Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio called Mr. Bel’s death “a horrible, horrible tragedy” in a news conference Tuesday.
“I think that you know you’ve heard me talk a lot about what I consider to be a very misguided and wrong policy in regard to mass deporting people from this country,” he said.
The younger Mr. Bel came to the United States in 2024, joining his parents and siblings who had arrived a couple of years earlier. He, his parents and a younger sibling were recipients of Temporary Protected Status, a legal safeguard that permitted roughly 330,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States.
The Trump administration ended T.P.S. for Haitians in July and initiated an aggressive electronic monitoring campaign centered on Springfield, which had become a magnet for Haitians in recent years because jobs were plentiful and the cost of living low. It is home to about 60,000 people, including more than 10,000 Haitians.
Mr. Bel’s father said in a statement shared with The New York Times that his son had been taunted because of the ankle monitor.
“He called me at 8:03 on a video call, I’m not feeling OK mentally because of the bullying, and I told him to come home so we can talk,” the father wrote. Three hours later, the police notified him that his son was dead.
In a recent Instagram post, the younger Mr. Bel wrote that he had not come to the United States “to commit a crime or hurt anyone.”
“Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience,” he wrote.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to answer questions about Mr. Bel’s death. But it said in a statement that the agency had fitted him with a monitor in July, intended as an alternative to detention that enables authorities to locate immigrants who fail to comply with orders to report for court hearings or ICE check-ins.
“No one is required to stay in the United States illegally and wear a monitor,” the statement read, noting that such immigrants can self-deport.
Mr. Bel had recently started his first semester at Wright State University in Dayton with a scholarship. He was inducted into the National Honor Society at Springfield High School in November, according to photographs and documents provided to The Times. Mr. Bel was co-captain of the soccer team and a lieutenant in the Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the high school.
“My son was a bright, very responsible young man who helped his family and studied really hard,” Mr. Bel said in an interview from the duplex that the family bought in Springfield in late 2024. His son had been looking forward to college, he said. .
Miles Dooley, 18, who played soccer with Mr. Bel their senior year, said it was difficult to speak about his friend in the past tense. They were both in the National Honor Society, and Mr. Bel had won a 5-kilometer race to raise money for a local food bank.
“He was so thrilled when he crossed that finish line,” recalled Mr. Dooley, a freshman at Ohio State University. “We had a lot of language barriers on the soccer team, and he often translated for the other kids who didn’t speak as good English.”
On his Instagram account, Mr. Bel posted letters addressed to an immigration judge from teachers, mentors, the manager of the Texas Roadhouse where he had worked and others in support of his request to have the ankle monitor removed. The names were redacted.
The letters from teachers described him as an asset to the school and the broader Springfield community. He excelled academically and volunteered at local charities, they said.
In a letter recommending Mr. Bel for a Rotary scholarship last year, the service manager at the Texas Roadhouse wrote: “Pierre understands the value of hard work and opportunity. He is truly a living breathing example of service above self.”
Mr. Bel was among hundreds of Haitians in Springfield who have been summoned to an ICE office since losing the protection that allowed them to lawfully live and work in the United States. Most who have reported to the agency have been fitted with an ankle monitor, according to lawyers and volunteers who have driven them to the appointments.
A few weeks ago, Haitian leaders told a Times reporter that a star student and athlete had been fitted with an ankle monitor, perhaps the youngest person from Springfield to get one. They were seeking his consent to be interviewed by the reporter, but Mr. Bel never responded.
“This is one of the most tragic outcomes of the Trump cruel and inhumane attacks on the Haitian community,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit.
Since early last month, ICE agents have been roaming Springfield and carrying out arrests almost daily. Lawyers and Haitian leaders estimate that dozens of Haitians have been detained, including two local pastors.
The intensified enforcement has sown widespread fear in the Haitian community, forcing many to venture outside only for work. Some American volunteers have been driving Haitian children to school and others have been delivering groceries to families.
On Sunday, hundreds of faith leaders, community members and other supporters gathered in Springfield to call on ICE to withdraw from the city. The event was titled “Unshackle Springfield.”
Carl Ruby, a local pastor who is the head of an interfaith coalition advocating for Haitians, called on Republican lawmakers to press the Trump administration to change course after Mr. Bel’s death.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
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