During the wake, local artist Nathan Conner came to the front porch and created a memorial painting. The center image shows Bell wearing a bright blue cap and gown and smiling broadly. His hair was styled into his usual pigtails, and a shawl decorated with Haitian and American flags hung around his neck. Another image in the painting shows Bell wearing a khaki shirt and navy blue slacks, the uniform of his school’s Junior ROTC program, although he was ineligible to continue in ROTC after he lost TPS. Also included on the canvas are the logos of the Springfield Wildcats (Bell’s high school football team) and the Wittenberg Tigers (the team of Wittenberg University, which recruited Bell to play). Eventually, he enrolled in the honors program at Wright State University, a public university, where he planned to study physiology and neuroscience in hopes of becoming a doctor. Last Halloween, he wore surgical scrubs and captioned his Instagram post that day “Dr. Pierre.” In the end, he only completed one week of college classes.
Belle’s father looked at Connor’s drawing for a long time, then let out a loud groan and began to cry.
“Can I keep this painting?” he asked. The artist nodded and Pierre-Ronald said: “I will take it with me wherever I go.”
The next morning, as guests arrived for Bell’s funeral, the painting was placed on an easel in the lobby of St. John Missionary Baptist Church. Opposite the easel is a large picture frame displaying artifacts from Bell’s tragedy, including the shattered remains of a mobile phone he had with him when he died. An email dated July 29 was sent to Wright State University’s Center for International Education: “I would like to know what options I have for obtaining F-1 student status while remaining in the United States,” Bell wrote. Another frame contained printed copies of letters sent by others on Bell’s behalf supporting his immigration case. A manager at Texas Roadhouse, the restaurant where he worked, wrote: “He is an outstanding young man with a bright future.” A teacher wrote that he had “a drive, drive and enthusiasm for self-improvement that truly embodies the ‘American Dream.'”
Inside the church, Bell’s photo-printed casket contains a large reproduction of his graduation photo. Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine and his wife, Fran, came to express their condolences. (DeWine called ending TPS for Haitians a “mistake”; decades ago, he lost a daughter in her 20s in a car accident, telling the Bell family, “We know how you feel.”) Springfield Mayor Rob Rue spoke with civic leaders and Littleton & Rue Funeral Home and Crematorium A double funeral was arranged for all. I expected the church to be packed, but many of the rows were empty. Springfield is home to some twelve to fifteen thousand Haitians who, despite Donald Trump and J.D. Vance’s portrayal of them as dangerous interlopers who eat their neighbors’ pets, have helped revitalize the struggling post-industrial city since TPS ended. ice Police have been conducting regular sweeps in the city and dozens of people have been detained, including three priests. (One has since been released.) Others were forced to turn in their passports and wear ankle monitors, which many saw as a way to encourage self-deportation, or at least make them more vulnerable to roundup in the future. The atmosphere is filled with terror and fear. “People are afraid to leave their homes,” Vilès Dorsainvil, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Community Help and Support in Haiti, who helped plan Bell’s services, told me. “They can’t drive because their licenses are no longer valid. They can’t buy food unless someone takes them, they can’t go to immigration hearings, they can’t go to medical appointments, they can’t take their kids to school or church, and when they go out they fear they’ll encounter ice and was taken away. “He remembers a dentist calling the center and telling him to urge people not to come to him because the dentist had seen ice Picked up three people in his parking lot.