At a pavilion west of downtown Springfield, Ohio, 32 high school students dressed in black T-shirts stand silently at a vigil in the warm fall evening air.

Some are holding signs depicting the number 11, as worn on the soccer field by Pierre Damas Bel, the 20-year-old Haitian student and athlete who died in an apparent suicide on 31 August. Other students hold signs that read “live like Pierre” and “Pierre was selfless”.

Playing left-back on the Springfield high school soccer team, 16-year-old Emerson Babian recalls always looking for ways to get the ball to Bel.

“The first time I met him was on the soccer field. We made the varsity soccer team together. He was the guy to pass [the ball] to; he was very fast,” says Emerson, his eyes welling up.

“On the starting 11, probably around half [of our players were Haitian]. A few of them could not speak English very fluently or even at all. Pierre was bilingual and he helped a lot of the time to translate what the coach was saying. That was just one way he improved our team and helped bring us together.”

Bel’s death has shaken Springfield to its core. After a regular check-in with immigration agents in July, he had been forced to wear an ankle bracelet monitor. Bel told his family the device was humiliating and prevented him from playing soccer.

Following the ending of temporary protected status (TPS) by the Trump administration that he and about 350,000 other Haitian nationals depended on to remain legally in the US, Bel fell into a saddened state, according to his father. He walked into traffic on the morning of 31 August. Authorities are investigating whether it was a suicide.

In Springfield, about 15,000 people from the afflicted Caribbean country had in recent years begun working in food processing, automotive and warehouse facilities, shaping the city’s wider economic revival by filling jobs that no one else wanted to do. For the first time in decades, its population decline had stopped.

Until Bel’s death, the story of Haitian youths in Springfield was one of triumph.

On Springfield’s playing fields and in its classrooms, the past six years had seen a talented new generation of Haitian student athletes appear. From boys and girls soccer teams to cross-country running to wrestling, a school district that had for decades experienced falling enrollment was being boosted, in part by the growing number of Haitian students attending school.

And while the growing Haitian student population created a heightened demand for resources, the school system saw graduation, attendance and its overall grading levels rise, despite a spate of temporary school closings in 2024 and earlier this year due to bomb threats prompted by false statements about immigrants made by Donald Trump in September 2024.

Their presence had also proved a boon for the city: more working families meant more property tax dollars being diverted to Springfield’s schools and sports programs, which in 2024 had a budget of nearly $39m. Last month, the city’s high school stadium reopened after a $6m renovation.

While the median age of residents in Springfield’s Clark county was older than the national level in 2024, the percentage of its residents who were children, partially boosted by the presence of Haitian families, was also higher than the national rate. At a time when rural America is seeing declining populations, last year Clark county had a higher percentage of children in its population than other Ohio counties with a comparable number of residents.

“Students, faculty and staff have built strong relationships with the Springfield Haitian community, recognizing that the contributions of all further the vibrant community we are proud to call home,” says Dr Christian Brady, the president of Wittenberg University in Springfield.

The growing number of young Haitians contributing to life in the city of about 58,000 people was happening at a time when billion-dollar companies promising thousands of new jobs announced plans to move to the city, where young, educated labor is essential to filling those roles.

But now, with the Trump administration’s policies being enforced, thousands of Haitian immigrants have fled Springfield or been detained and deported. Hundreds languish in jail. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson told the Springfield News-Sun that the agency is not responsible for Bel’s death. All the while, Springfield schools are experiencing falling revenue from local taxes, according to its popular annual financial report.

Back at the vigil, however, students, parents and soccer coaches aren’t thinking about dollars.

Wearing sandals and socks, and some with dyed blue hair, Bel’s former classmates are holding back tears, handing out candles and mourning together, the shock of his death still seen in their faces.

When Emerson, a high school senior who organized the student vigil, learned of Bel’s death, he said he was devastated.

“I was overwhelmed with shock. He was such an ambitious and kind person. I never even thought that was a possibility [that he would die],” he says.

A woman attending the vigil who asked not to be named – her family employed several Haitian workers when it was legal to do so, and the owners of some companies that employed Haitians in Springfield have received death threats – said she believes the Haitian community is a beneficial addition to the city.

“When employers need workers, they’re very reliable; I can depend on them to be there. They just want to make their way here and it’s just a terrible thing that we’re sending them back to what they have to go back to,” she says.

ICE agents have been active in Springfield for almost a month.

“If I had my way, I would want [the government] to not target [the students’] parents, to not put any student in ankle monitors; it’s just inhumane,” she says.

At the vigil, one student, whose Haitian father is in hiding due to the cancellation of his TPS authorization, spoke in Haitian Creole. Another student, who also played soccer with Bel, walked around and shook the hands of each attender, thanking them. (A number of Haitian students in Springfield declined to be interviewed by the Guardian, fearing being detained and deported by ICE.)

Holding candles, a group of women who worked with Bel at a local Texas Roadhouse restaurant were visibly distraught. None had permission from their employer to speak to the media, except one, who said she worked with Bel for two years: “The only thing you need to know about Pierre is that he was loved.”

Emerson, who did service projects with Bel before the latter’s death and who was inducted into the National Honor Society with him last fall, says Bel had a strong positive influence on Springfield before his death.

“We’d go to elementary schools and give out kids’ shoes; we’d go to the food bank and package food for the elderly that can’t leave their homes,” he recalls.

“It’s hard not to like somebody like Pierre.”

After the students spoke, a pastor read a prayer and a moment of silence was held.

Then, the students picked up their signs and silently walked off stage, each one in some way a victim of the government’s immigration policies.