Immigrant dies at New Jersey detention facility, becoming 22nd death in ICE custody this year
A 41-year-old Salvadoran man died on 1 August at Delaney Hall, a New Jersey immigration detention center. His death is the 22nd recorded in ICE custody this year.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Monday that an immigrant held at a New Jersey ICE detention center died on 1 August. Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, 41, was the 22nd person to die in ICE custody this year, according to agency data.
Lopez-Cornejo, originally from El Salvador, first came to the US in 2006. He was arrested by ICE agents on 18 June in Plainfield, New Jersey, and sent to the Delaney Hall facility to await deportation. Less than two months later, he suffered an unspecified medical emergency and was pronounced dead at University Hospital in Newark, ICE said.
His mother, Maria Cornejo, told the New Jersey Monitor that her son had been employed since 2022 and tried to show his work permit to the arresting officers, but he was detained anyway. Although she spoke with him daily, she could not visit him because she is not a US citizen. Cornejo said her son had not seen his daughter for six weeks, and when the girl was told what happened, she screamed and has not been the same since, unable to sleep or eat. Cornejo said she never imagined her son would die in such a place and felt destroyed.
Delaney Hall has recently been under national scrutiny and has been a site of protests over allegations including physical abuse by guards and spoiled food. In late May, at least 300 detainees organized a hunger and labor strike. Weeks later, women in a separate unit of the same facility launched their own hunger strike. Their demands included facility improvements, as well as calls for ICE to release women under 21, those with medical conditions, and mothers.
In response to the death, Newark Mayor Ras J Baraka renewed calls for the facility’s closure. He said the latest loss of life reflects the lack of accountability and oversight that residents, officials and detainees have been demanding. Baraka said GEO Group and ICE have repeatedly shown disregard for transparency, public oversight and the laws designed to protect people in their custody. Without accountability, he argued, tragedies become all too common, and these disturbing failures cannot be allowed to continue unchecked.
