Death of young Haitian migrant highlights psychological harm of ICE’s ankle monitors

This coming Friday the residents of Springfield, Ohio, are being called to a vigil to remember Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian man whom his family says died by suicide on Monday after walking onto Interstate 70, where a tractor-trailer struck him, killing him instantaneously. The incident, which Ohio Governor Mike DeWine called “a horrible, horrible tragedy,” has shocked the country.

There is no way to know for certain the reasons that led him to take such a decision, but his family, friends and his own statements point in the same direction: the Trump administration’s inhumane immigration policy. Bel’s behavior changed after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fitted him with an electronic ankle monitor to track his movements by GPS, which led to harassment from his peers.

“After they put this ankle monitor on my son, he felt he was treated like an animal,” his father, Pierres Ronal Bel, 40, said in a statement read by Pastor Carl Ruby of the Central Christian Church.

The young man also described the dire situation he was living through and the emotional distress the device was causing him. “I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here 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 posted on his Instagram account in July along with a photo of his leg with the ankle monitor.

Bel’s death has highlighted the consequences of wearing a device that causes physical pain, social marginalization and psychological disorders. “These devices cause really significant harm to mental health. People report a marked deterioration in their quality of life and in their desire to go out, socialize and do activities they once enjoyed,” Lauren Hodges, senior attorney at Amica, told EL PAÍS. The migrant-rights advocacy organization filed a lawsuit in June against the Trump administration over the indiscriminate use of GPS monitors. At the time of the lawsuit, about 50,000 people were wearing the device.

“People perceive a strong stigma in the community; there is an idea that wearing these devices means you have done something wrong or committed a crime. Many of the people we spoke to work and care for children; they are individuals who, before having to wear these monitors, enjoyed going to church and spending time with friends. Now they feel the community sees them differently, which makes them avoid going out in public and prevents them from living a normal life,” she explains.

The use of this tool is not new; previous administrations had already used it. The difference since Trump returned to the White House and launched his crusade against immigration is that ICE no longer evaluates each case individually. According to officials, the tool’s function is to force undocumented people to attend their immigration appointments, but critics consider it unnecessary and an assault on liberty to have a person located 24 hours a day. Whereas previously monitors were reserved for specific cases studied individually, the immigration agency now uses them indiscriminately. Bel, an exemplary student who was following asylum procedures, is an example of that.

Bel was the eldest of three siblings, and his family describes him as intelligent and responsible. He arrived in the United States in 2024, fleeing violence in Haiti, to join family members who had entered two years earlier. He had an asylum application in process. He graduated with honors from high school, was a standout athlete and was a member of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC). Bel had recently begun his first semester at Wright State University in Dayton on a scholarship, and his dream was to study medicine.

His father said everything was fine until they put on the ankle monitor and his son’s life changed. Bel made two separate visits to ICE offices to beg agents to remove the device because it interfered with his athletic activity and caused him deep shame in front of his peers. The young man complained to his father that last Friday his JROTC instructor distributed uniforms to students but did not give him one because he was wearing the ankle monitor.

In his statement, Pierres Ronal Bel said that on the day of the tragic outcome his son messaged him. “He said, ‘Dad, I’m not feeling ok. I’m not thinking right … because of the bullies,’ and I told him, ‘Come home so that we can talk [...] Around 11 the police showed at my door to report that my son threw himself under a truck.”

Participants in Amica’s class-action lawsuit also point to the physical harm of wearing the ankle monitors, which are heavy, painful and heat up. In some cases people have suffered infections and, in general, they make walking, bending and everyday tasks difficult. But the psychological harm is even greater, especially for people who carry traumas — “particularly those seeking asylum or who have survived human trafficking or domestic violence. Electronic shackles are a real reminder of that trauma; they make people feel watched and controlled, and have a truly terrible effect on them,” Hodges adds.

ICE did not respond to EL PAÍS’s questions about Bel’s death, but in a statement said, “ICE does not comment on cause of death while the investigation is ongoing, and we will not speculate on unverified claims regarding other people. No one is required to remain in the United States illegally. Undocumented immigrants have a legal, voluntary option: they can self-deport.”

First blow, the end of TPS

Trump’s immigration policy had already struck Bel’s family by terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, a decision the Supreme Court upheld in June. The young man was one of hundreds of Haitians summoned by ICE after the program that allowed them to live and work legally in the United States was ended.

The termination of TPS, granted to nationals of countries facing emergency situations such as violence, natural disasters or war, is part of Trump’s deportation campaign. The circumstances that drove the roughly 350,000 Haitians affected to flee their country and seek refuge in the United States, however, have not changed. Haiti remains dominated by criminal gangs and widespread violence, so despite no longer having TPS, returning to their country is not an option for most.

“A couple of weeks ago I was accompanying a man to his ICE appointment when he told me, ‘Some gangs just kidnapped my brother in Haiti.’ I asked how he was, and he replied that they had burned him alive. These are not unusual stories; I hear them again and again. That is why they feel absolute terror at the idea of returning to Haiti,” Pastor Ruby told CNN. Ruby described the harassment the Haitian community in Springfield has suffered from the government since Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance made false and outlandish accusations that the Haitians in Springfield (about 10,000 of a population of 60,000) were eating people’s pets.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition