What Happened
Bel arrived in the U.S. in 2024 to reunite with his parents, who had fled Haiti, and settled in Springfield, Ohio. He had just graduated from Springfield High School, where he played varsity soccer and held the rank of lieutenant in the Junior ROTC. He worked at Texas Roadhouse and planned to start at Wright State University this fall.
That future changed when the Supreme Court cleared the way in June for the administration to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, stripping more than 350,000 people of work authorization and protection from deportation. Bel was one of them. DHS then fitted him with a GPS ankle monitor as part of its effort to track former TPS holders.
In a statement read aloud by Pastor Carl Ruby, Bel’s father, Pierre Ronal Bel, said his son felt treated like an animal once the monitor went on. He said Bel made two trips to Cincinnati and Westerville to ask officers to remove it, embarrassed because he was a soccer player.
On Aug. 31, 2026, Bel died by suicide in Springfield, according to the advocacy group representing his family.
“I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone.” Pierre Damas Bel In a July social media post about his ankle monitor
