Salvadoran Man Held by ICE at Delaney Hall Dies, Family Says

A Salvadoran man held for the past six weeks at Delaney Hall, the largest ICE detention center in the New York metro area, has died, his mother and attorneys say. It is the second death at the facility since it opened a year and a half ago.

In a lengthy interview posted to Facebook Monday by New Jersey-based immigrant rights groups Radio Jornalera and Radio Cosecha, Maria Cornejo, the man’s mother, described the death of her son Edwin Jeovanny Lopez Cornejo over the weekend. 

Madalyne Atenco, a paralegal at the law firm representing Lopez Cornejo in a federal habeas corpus lawsuit also confirmed his death with The City Reporter.

Lopez Cornejo was a 39-year-old who immigrated from El Salvador nearly 20 years ago and the father of a 12-year-old U.S. citizen daughter, according to legal filings. His mother Maria said in the Facebook interview that she had last heard from her son on Friday, a day before his death. 

He had called from Delaney Hall saying he didn’t feel well and that part of his face and his right hand had gone numb. 

A federal habeas corpus filing submitted on Lopez Cornejo’s behalf late last month described a detailed medical regimen to manage focal epilepsy, high blood pressure and high blood sugar, among other chronic conditions. The petition did not allege he was being denied regular medicines.

“He had a consultation. They were going to do some exams, but they didn’t say when,” Maria recounted in Spanish. 

She next heard about her son the following day in a call from the hospital, which asked her to identify his body. Hospital officials told her that her son had arrived lifeless.

“His heart had stopped,” she said. A spokesperson for University Hospital in Newark didn’t return a request for comment right away. 

No one from Geo Group or ICE had called her to tell her what had happened, she said. 

Christopher Ferreira, a spokesperson for GEO Group deferred to ICE. A spokesperson for ICE didn’t return a request for comment right away. 

“I’ve lost my son,” Maria said. “If there isn’t justice they are going to continue this way forever and we don’t know how many more people we have to lose in this country, working people.”

In the video, Maria said she wasn’t sure if her son was getting his medicine or not, though she suspected irregular access to medicines was to blame for her son’s death. 

Lopez Cornejo’s attorney said he had no criminal history and was most recently working as a landscaper and also in a warehouse in Jackson, New Jersey, according to attestations in his support submitted by colleagues as part of the lawsuit seeking his release. He was arrested by ICE on June 18, as he was walking to get his car from a towing company in Plainfield, New Jersey. He’d been deported after crossing the border as an 18-year-old in 2006, according to his habeas filing. He crossed again the next year and has remained in New Jersey ever since. 

“Edwin Jeovanny Lopez Cornejo should be alive today. His death was preventable, and his family deserves answers, accountability, and justice,” said Jorge Torres, Organizing Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), one of the groups working with Cornejo’s family.

Lopez Cornejo’s death was the first at the facility since Delaney Hall shot into the national spotlight in late May, when detainees mounted a protest inside the facility while heavily-armed ICE agents met protesters outside the its gates with pepper spray and batons for days on end. 

One of the prime demands was the release of medically vulnerable detainees, who strikers said were being denied access to proper medical care.

The City Reporter detailed the accounts of dozens of those detainees, who had reported severe medical neglect while being held at the facility, including a pregnant woman suffering from severe stomach pains who was denied prenatal care, a man with leukemia who missed two months of treatments and a Haitian woman with a throat tumor that obstructed her breathing. 

Multiple detainees described difficulty accessing routine medication to manage treatable medical conditions like epilepsy and diabetes. Detainees also described having to make repeated requests over days and weeks to see a doctor on staff before finally getting an appointment.

“We are seeing regular denial of care at this facility,” said Sally Pillay, director of the immigrant advocacy group Mami Chelo. She said there should be an independent investigation into Cornejo’s death and an immediate review of all people’s cases who had severe medical needs at the facility.

Lopez Cornejo’s death followed the death of Jean Wilson Brutus, last December, a 41-year-old Haitian immigrant, who died shortly after his arrival at Delaney Hall, when he suffered a medical emergency and staff tried to resuscitate him, according to ICE’s report on his death. 

At least 32 people have died in ICE custody so far this fiscal year, which runs through October, more than any other full fiscal year on record. The prior was 28 deaths in ICE custody in fiscal year 2004.

The surging death count comes as ICE is detaining a record number of people as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. As of mid-July there were 65,765 people in ICE detention, down slightly from a peak of 70,766 in January. Only 29% of those in ICE custody as of mid-July had been convicted of a crime. The remaining 31% had pending criminal charges, while 40% had never been charged or convicted with a crime. 

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