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https://abcnews.com/US/haitian-graduated-high-school-takes-life-after-losing/story?id=136114654
Haitian who just graduated high school dies by suicide after losing TPS status, advocacy group says
A 20-year-old Haitian who had just graduated high school and had recently lost temporary protected status died by suicide Monday, according to an advocacy group representing his family.
Pierre Damas Bel, who arrived in the U.S. in 2024 to reunite with his parents who had fled Haiti, got out of his vehicle on an interstate in Springfield, Ohio, and walked into traffic, law enforcement officials told local news outlets.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol told ABC News it is investigating Bel's death. In a statement, the agency confirmed that Bel parked on Interstate 70, exited his Toyota and entered the westbound lanes of the highway.
Bel was one of the more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants who lost TPS status after the Supreme Court in June cleared the way for the Trump administration to end the program, which provides work authorization and protection from deportation to migrants fleeing countries that are deemed unsafe due to armed conflicts or natural disasters.
He had recently been fitted with a GPS ankle monitor by the Department of Homeland Security as part of the department's effort to track former TPS holders, according to posts on his social media account.
I came to this country to pursue my education, I didn't come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone," Bel posted in July. "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."
During a press conference Tuesday, Pastor Carl Ruby read a statement on behalf of Bel's father in which the elder Bel said, "After my son was outfitted with the ankle monitor, he felt like he was treated like an animal."