A 31-year-old Haitian asylum seeker, identified by relatives as Daphy Michel, was found unresponsive in a bus shelter beneath the Smithfield Street Bridge on Pittsburgh’s South Side on March 2 and later died. Her family says she had recently been moved from the Washington County Jail into ICE supervision and fitted with an ankle monitor, and they are now pressing officials to explain what happened in the brief window between her release and her death.
Maintenance staff with the Monongahela Incline noticed Michel in the bus shelter shortly after 10 a.m. Port Authority Police say officers arrived to find her not breathing and without a pulse, and began life-saving efforts, including CPR, use of an AED, and administering Narcan. She was taken to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital, where a doctor later told the family she died from cardiac arrest. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner is conducting an autopsy, and toxicology results could take several weeks, according to WTAE.
Family members and court records say Michel had been held in Washington County for nearly six months on a $10,000 bond. A judge dismissed two misdemeanor charges at a hearing on Feb. 26. The next day, she was processed into ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program at the ERO Pittsburgh office, placed on reporting requirements, and given an electronic ankle monitor. After her death, ICE said it received an alert that the device had been removed, according to reporting by L.A. TACO.
How ICE's Alternatives to Detention Works
ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program, often run as the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), allows some noncitizens to stay in the community under supervision instead of in a detention facility. The program is overseen by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and can involve GPS ankle monitors and regular reporting requirements. Privacy and oversight documents from the agency describe how location monitoring, data collection, and tamper alerts are handled, according to DHS.
Michel’s older brother, Carlo, told reporters he had been waiting for a call saying his sister was finally out of jail, only to instead be notified that she was in a hospital. Attorney Joseph Murphy, who is representing the family, said the timeline, the supervision requirements, and the fact that Michel was wearing an ankle monitor while far from her support system all raise serious concerns. “This is obviously going to make questions in anybody’s mind,” Murphy told WTAE.
Officials say they are deferring to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner for the official cause of death, and ICE has directed questions about how Michel died to the coroner’s office. The agency has confirmed that Michel was enrolled in ATD after her release from Washington County. Family members and advocates say they plan to keep pushing for transparency about who decided to move, monitor, and release Michel, and what, if any, follow-up care or support was offered, according to L.A. TACO.
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