The following statement can be attributed to Wendy Cervantes, director of the Immigration and Immigrant Families team at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).

Washington, D.C, September 2, 2026—Children’s advocates mourn the death of Pierre Damas Bel, a Black 20-year-old first-year college student from Haiti with dreams of becoming a doctor. His preventable death followed weeks of anguish after he was stripped of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and fitted with an ankle monitor, along with many other Haitian Ohioans who have built their lives in Springfield. Pierre is one of more than 350,000 Haitian nationals across the country who have been robbed of their work authorization and legal status due to the Trump Administration’s termination of TPS for Haiti, leaving them vulnerable to detention, deportation, and family separation. Pierre’s tragic story is a reminder that Black immigrants continually face the compounded pressures of a punitive immigration system that is not only xenophobic and outdated, but also anti-Black.  

Experts from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) issued the following statements:

Wendy Cervantes, Director of Immigration and Immigrant Families at CLASP: “All of our children deserve the opportunity to follow their dreams and prepare for their futures. They deserve to build community, pursue an education, and put down roots in the place they call home. But the federal government has robbed this from countless children and adults, like 20-year-old Pierre Damas Bel, by cruelly taking away their immigration status and forcing them to wear electronic shackles; and others by locking them away in detention camps and sending them to dangerous places they don’t know. 

“No child, teenager, or young adult should have their lives cut short by any policy or political agenda. Nothing can undo what was done to Pierre, but our elected officials can act now to stop the bleeding they’ve caused to our beautifully diverse communities. Remove the shackles, restore dignity. Close the camps, cancel the removal flights. Make pathways to stabilizing immigration status. Invest in solutions that ensure all of our children can grow up to become whole, healthy adults. Our precious children need us to create the conditions that let them live.”

Kaelin Rapport, PhD, ACLS Leading Edge Fellow and Policy Analyst, Public Benefits Justice at CLASP: “Pierre’s future was stolen by the Trump Administration’s crusade of wanton cruelty against immigrants—and built on a history of the United States using carceral violence against Black individuals. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has used electronic monitoring—modern-day shackles—to surveil Black communities, including immigrants. In my research, I’ve repeatedly heard from men like Pierre how humiliating it is to be subjected to this type of surveillance; people reported feeling dehumanized, stigmatized, depressed, and paranoid, presenting long-term consequences for public health. 

“While electronic monitoring is often praised because of its presumed cost and harm reduction, Pierre’s and other Haitian Ohioans’ stories show us otherwise. By stripping Black immigrants of their legal status, surveilling them both in and out of detention, and sending them to harmful conditions, the United States is simply repeating its long history of criminalizing Black people. Our policymakers at all levels of government must do right by our Black and immigrant neighbors, remove their shackles, free them from unnecessary immigrant detention, and create workable pathways to citizenship that allow them to build stable lives in the American communities they call home.”

Christian Collins, Policy Analyst, Education, Labor, and Worker Justice at CLASP: “The tragedy that has befallen Pierre Damas Bel’s family and community is a direct consequence of the Trump Administration’s abject cruelty towards Black immigrants. However, the state of Ohio also bears responsibility for this tragedy. State policymakers have shamelessly watched as the federal government has weaponized racism and xenophobia against Springfield’s Haitian community—a population who happily integrated themselves into a struggling city to help revitalize it.  

“Ohio has not only failed to protect Pierre because of his immigration status, but has made him the latest example in a long list of its failures to protect Ohio’s college students. It is no surprise that a system that has failed to stand up for its students against policymakers’ attacks, has again failed to stand up for Pierre as he faced isolation and bullying after beginning his semester at Wright State. No family or community sends their children to be harassed or to die at an educational institution. Ohio’s policymakers and its schools must protect students and communities against the harms they face from the Trump Administration—not sacrifice them to cling to the altar of power.”