Requiem Aeternam Dona Eis, Domine, Et Lux Perpetua Luceat Eis. Requiescant In Pace. Amen.
The email is tragically, admirably eloquent.
The news of the American presidential admiration’s cruelty is so infuriating that I’ll first celebrate kindness before addressing evil.
Respecting their privacy, I will only refer to “my friend” and his family.
From Mom:
(Dad) and I and our family firmly believe in science and although we may not see a direct benefit for (Dad), we are mainly thinking of our sons, grandchildren and the future generations and the potential cure for many disorders. We are extremely grateful for playing an active role in research at the (university-based research institute) with amazing clinical/neurology physicians as well as very knowledgeable and research scientists and coordinators.
Dad is in his second year of a horrific – for him and all those he loves and who love him - challenge of neurodegenerative disorders/diseases.
And they – Dad, Mom, sons, [as my father would say] “the whole fam-damn-ily” - have rallied for future generations of people they will never know. Their lives are filled with appointments and working with physicians and researchers, with waiting rooms and waiting for…
They are not simply good people; they are heroically good people. I am in awe of their dedication, courage and Christ-likeness – “When you were sick, you gave yourself over to Science and Research as service to generations to come.”
“No man is an island, entire of itself…
any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.”
John Donne
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly,
affects all indirectly.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Had circumstances, had America been different, Pierre Damas Bel might have been one of those researchers or physicians who, building on the generosity of my friend’s father and “whole fam-damn-ily,” discovered solutions – cures – to the ugliest of neurodegenerative disorders and diseases – maybe even the same medical horrors that might plague you or someone you love.
Except… Except…
At 8:03 on Monday morning August 31, Pierre called his father and told him “I’m not feeling okay. 'Dad, I'm not feeling OK. I'm not thinking right because of the bullies.” He felt humiliated having to wear an ICE GPS monitor and other students were bullying him because of it. At 8:45 a.m. troopers at Ohio State Highway Springfield Post received a call: Pierre Damas Bel had parked his 2006 Toyota Avalon on the right shoulder of I-70 at mile marker 66 and walked into the westbound lanes. The twenty-year-old soccer scholarshipped Wright State University student was struck and killed by an oncoming tractor-trailer.
Pierre Damas Bel’s ankle monitor
Several weeks before his death, Pierre Damas Bel shared on Instagram image of the GPS tracker Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had secured to his ankle and wrote that he was “Carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I have never imagined I would experience.”
Don’t call it suicide!
ICE and an administration dedicated to “othering” and hatred disguised as going after “the worst of the worst” took his dreams, his hopes, his life from him.
Carl Ruby, Senior Pastor of the Central Christian Church in Springfield, an immigration advocate who is assisting Pierre’s family after his death, told National Public Radio host Ailsa Chang:
“This young man had never even had a traffic ticket, posed no threat at all. He was just terrified of going back to Haiti… (His family) believe that it happened because of the ankle monitor. He was teased at school about it. He's a student at Wright State. He posted about it. He talked with friends about it. I mean, there are two things. He was ashamed of it, and he was afraid of going back to Haiti. So it's a combination of those two things. And I think what kind of pushed him over the brink was, in the ROTC class, they were handing out uniforms, and everyone in the class got a uniform except for him. And he was told he couldn't get one because of his immigration status or the ankle monitor. (“Remembering Perre Damas Bel, an Ohio college student with great promise,” NPR All Things Considered, Ailsa Change, September 2, 2026)
In an America capable of only a twenty-four to thirty-six hour attention span, Pierre’s death has already faded into the far distant memory of most, if it hasn’t disappeared completely. In the Oval Office, where hate celebrating, prepubescent unTruth memes are spawned simply to feed the ego of an eighty-year-old aspirin-abuser, the odious White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Steve Miller and the self-described “very Catholic” and “devout Mass-goer” White House Border Czar Tom Horman who regularly justifies himself and promises to go after the “worst of the worst” have probably forgotten Pierre Damas Bel, if they ever knew his name.
“The function of prayer is not to influence God
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
Søren Kierkegaard
Sadly, in his 2020 book Defend the Border and Save Lives: Solving Our Most Important Humanitarian and Security Crisis, Horman references his investigation of an incident in which a driver, hoping to avoid suspicion at an immigration checkpoint, turned off the air-conditioner of a tractor-trailer, turning it into a moving oven. Nineteen people, including a five-year-old boy died; his body was found under the body of his father. He was the same age as Hormon’s son.
“It appeared that the father was embracing and comforting his son at the time of his death. Several survivors later testified that the innocent little boy was the first to perish, crying ‘Daddy, Daddy, I’m dying,’ I knelt down and put my hand on his small head, and I prayed for him.” (“Border Czar Tom Homan: Faith and Policy at a Crossroads,” National Catholic Reporter, November 19, 2024, Mattew McDonald.)
“A majority of the immigrants arrested in July
were people who were accused of violating civil immigration laws
but who had not been charged with or convicted of a crime,
an analysis of newly released federal data shows.
The share with a past violent criminal conviction
fell to less than 4 percent.”
(“ICE Arrests Soar as People With
No Criminal Record Are Increasingly Targeted,”
Albert Sun and Allison McCann,
The New York Times, August 27, 2026.)
The holocaust was gradual, a process designed to “other” all Jews. The infamous Dachau concentration opened in March 1933; in 1935 the Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of citizenship and basic legal rights. The Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”) pogrom ushered in state-sanctioned attacks against Jews, their homes, synagogues, and businesses. The “Final Solution,” generally dated from 1941 and the escalation of mass killings after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, lasted through the May 9, 1945 and the liberation of the Stutthof concentration camp.
Sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
reports:
Approximately 2.7 million Jews were murder at killing centers.
About 2 million Jews were murdered in mass shooting operations and related massacres.
Between 800,000 and one million Jews were murdered in ghettos, labor camps and concentration camps.
At least 250,000 Jews were murdered in other acts of violence outside of champs and ghettos.
To this day, no one knows how many neuroscientists, geneticists, speech therapists and researchers, physicians, and others whose specialties I won’t even pretend to understand were lost to the world because of antisemitic hate.
“A surge in immigration arrests this summer has swept up thousands of people who had not previously been the focus of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign. They included people married to U.S. citizens, people who had entered legally and were pursuing an asylum claim, and others with a temporary legal status that the administration pushed to revoke.
“A majority of the immigrants arrested in July were people who were accused of violating civil immigration laws but who had not been charged with or convicted of a crime, an analysis of newly released federal data shows. The share with a past violent criminal conviction fell to less than 4 percent.” (“ICE Arrests Soar as People With No Criminal Record Are Increasingly Targeted,” The New York Times, August 27, 2026, Albert Sun and Allison McCann)
Pierre Damas Bel receiving his high school diploma.
Pierre Damas Bel arrived in the United States on March 5, 2024 at the Brownsvlle (Texas)-Gateway Port of Entry using the Customs and Border Patrol One app (CBPOne); he hoped to escape the gang violence of Haiti and join his family and was granted Temporary Protective Status (TPS) under the Biden administration. A member of the Springfield High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp (JROTC), at graduation – with a 3.8 GPA - he was recognized for his “exception physical fitness” and was one of eight graduating seniors who received an Award of Excellence scholarship from the school district’s Business Advisory Council. A member of the National Honor Society, he was a recipient of a grant from the Dorothy M. Mumma Scholarship Fund. A star on his Springfield High Wildcats soccer team, he earned a soccer scholarship at Wittenburg University.
In late July, ICE placed him on “alternatives to detention” with an ankle monitor while his immigration proceedings continue. Before the beginning of preseason training at Wittenerg, the weight of the ICE ankle monitor made soccer impossible and brought on bullying by other students; he transferred to Wright State University, planning to study neurosciences and physiology and apply to medical schools.
On July 30, Pierre posted photographs on his Instagram page, displaying some of recently earned Springfield High recognitions and awards. One photo was of his ankle monitor with the caption:
“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.”
His family said he was ashamed of the ankle monitor and other students bullied him because of it. “The very thing he loved outside of education, sport, was stripped away from him because of that ankle monitory,” said Pierre’s classmate Yola Lamarre, an organizer of a memorial service in Columbus, Ohio.
“A few weeks ago, we all wrote letters about his ankle monitor for his judge, and now we’re all saying goodbye to our friend,” said Caleigh Jenkins, one of Pierre’s coworkers at Texas Roadhouse in Springfield.
“He was someone that was going to be somebody. And he was somebody that was going to make a name for his family,” said friend Samantha Anderson, noting that Pierre had applied for asylum.
While we’re reasonably confident that Stephen Miller and Donald Trump can’t remember Pierre Damas Bel’s name – if they ever knew it – and never prayed for him, we’re left wondering if Tom Horman, who claims he “knelt down… and I prayed” for a five-year-old boy who died seeking the freedom of the United States, has prayed for Pierre Damas Bel, who wrote “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.”
Yola Lamarre, a close friend of Pierre Damas Bel, is overcome with emotion during a press conference in Springfield on September 1.
We wonder how many lives – like the life of my friend’s heroic father - the future scientist, medical doctor and healer Pierre Damas Bel might have saved.
We wonder if Mr. Hormon truly believes that five-year-old or Pierre Damas Bel were, as he is so fond of saying, “the worst of the worst.”
We wonder if Mr. Hormon prays
Peace be with those who have left us
and gone to God.
May he be with God…
Now and forever, with God
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,
May Pierre be at peace.
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.
We wonder because we believe
Prayer does not change Nature.
Prayer does not change History.
Prayer does not change God.
Prayer changes the one who prays.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Requiescant in pace. Amen.