A man who was detained at the Delaney Hall ICE facility has died, according to members of the New Jersey congressional delegation.
Delaney Hall, a privately operated detention center, has been the site of turmoil during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. It’s been the target of complaints almost since it reopened in 2025. Elected officials have clashed with the federal government over accessing the facility, and altercations between law enforcement and protesters outside the facility went viral earlier this summer.
On Monday, immigrant rights group Cosecha New Jersey shared a video identifying the person who died as Edwin Jeovanny López Cornejo.
María Cornejo, who identified herself as his mother, said in Spanish that the hospital called her to inform her of her son’s death, and that his heart was not beating when he arrived. It is currently unclear at what point he died and whether it was in Delaney Hall or on his way to the hospital.
“There is this pain that has struck me now — it’s not just me who’s been struck by it, yet there are many people in this country who are growing tired of this pain,” she said in Spanish.
“If they don’t ensure that justice is served, well, they’re going to keep doing this forever, and we don’t know how many more people we’ll have to lose in this country,” she added. “Hardworking people. People who aren’t involved in other things, but who devote themselves to their work.”
Shortly after that video streamed, U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez, a North Jersey Democrat, said in a video on X that he was showing up for an unannounced oversight visit to Delaney Hall. A few hours later, he said ICE confirmed López Cornejo’s death.
“We asked certain medical questions which ICE couldn’t give us answers to,” he said. “We have to request it or his family has to request it, which we will.”
Cornejo said her son took medicine for blood pressure, diabetes, and seizures. She said that while she does not know for sure whether he had access to his medicine, she believes ICE “neglected” providing it to him, leading to his death.
She said she last spoke on the phone with him on Friday, when he said that he felt ill and part of his face and hand had fallen asleep. He told her he was taken to the doctor that day and they were going to run some labs, but he didn’t say when.
Menendez said he learned that López Cornejo “complained of difficulties that he was having” on Saturday and collapsed at Delaney Hall, where CPR was performed and EMS took him to University Hospital where he was declared dead.
“We asked certain medical questions which ICE couldn’t give us answers to,” he said. “We have to request it or his family has to request it, which we will.”
Cornejo said her son had been in the U.S. for 20 years and was a hard worker. She said he hada 12-year-old daughter who had not been able to see him since he entered the facility six weeks ago. He previously told her on the phone that his hands turned purple from the handcuffs he was arrested in.
Danilo López, who identifies himself as López Cornejo’s brother, said he doesn’t know why his sibling was detained because he had a valid work permit.
“I wouldn’t wish the pain we’re going through right now on anyone, and I don’t want this to keep happening,” he said. “Because it hurts so much — it leaves a void, it leaves a daughter orphaned, and above all, it leaves an irreparable void in the family. And that’s why I’m asking for justice for my brother.”
Sebastiana Cornejo, who identifies herself as López Cornejo’s aunt, said he was arrested on his way to work.
She blamed her nephew’s death on ICE detaining him and called for the Trump administration to stop its mass deportations, and “that they stop separating families, leaving children orphaned with no one to care for them”
“Why are they detaining so many working people?” she said. “We immigrants don’t harm anyone; we come to work, not to harm anyone.”
The office of Sen. Andy Kim, a South Jersey Democrat, confirmed that the Newark ICE field office notified the senator’s team of the death Monday morning but did not have further details to provide. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to requests for information.
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Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill said her administration is working with the state’s congressional delegation “to gather all the facts surrounding his death” but noted that the state health department continues to struggle to access the whole facility for an inspection, which is at the heart of one of New Jersey’s court battles with Trump.
“Every effort to block oversight raises serious questions about what is happening inside Delaney Hall and what those operating the facility are trying to hide,” she said. “This tragedy is another painful reminder of why Delaney Hall should be closed.”
Turmoil at Delaney Hall
Detentions have surged across the nation, from about 38,000 when Trump took office to more than 70,000 in January and standing at about 66,000 as of July. Delaney Hall, a gray, two-story building in an industrial area of Newark, has been a key part of that infrastructure.
It has also been the site of protests, complaints, and political fights between the Trump administration and New Jersey Democrats since its doors opened in May 2025.
Last year, Newark Mayor Rask Baraka was arrested outside the facility before his charges were dropped. U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver, a North Jersey Democrat, still faces federal charges over an altercation outside the facility on the same day.
This year during Memorial Day weekend, reports of a detainee hunger strike exploded into violence between demonstrators and ICE officers and later between protesters and New Jersey state police.
Kim was pepper-sprayed outside the facility as he tried to quell tensions between ICE and demonstrators, and Gov. Mikie Sherrill faced pushback from her own supporters for unleashing state police.
Federal officials insisted there was no hunger strike and said detainees there and elsewhere in the system were being held in safe and humane conditions.
Delaney Hall is important to ICE officials who move detainees across the country and the world, because it offers easy access to major highways and to airports in the New York metro area. It also offers the Trump administration a stage for highly publicized battles against “sanctuary politicians” it believes should thank ICE for removing murderers, rapists, pedophiles and drug traffickers off the streets.
Research by Syracuse University professor Austin Kocher showed that 88.3% of detainees at Delaney have no criminal convictions. On a typical day the facility holds about 850 detainees, though the New Jersey Vindicator reported that about 120 were suddenly bused away during the July 4 weekend.
Deaths in ICE custody
At least 22 people have died in ICE custody so far this year, according to DHS data, provoking outrage from immigrant allies who blame poor medical care, unhealthy conditions, and lack of agency training.
Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit watchdog group, calculated that more than 50 people died in ICE custody in the first 500 days of Trump’s term — the highest rate in more than a decade. It’s more than two and a half times as high as during the first Trump administration, and stands nearly four times that of the Biden administration, Human Rights Watch said.
ICE says the health of detainees ranks among its highest priorities, and national detention standards require it to provide comprehensive medical, dental, and mental health care from the moment someone arrives at a facility.
The federal agency says some people who are detained may not have received prior, reliable care for existing conditions. And some people may never before have had comprehensive medical care at all.
In December, a 41-year-old Haitian national named Jean Wilson Brutus one day after entering Delaney Hall, succumbing to what ICE said was suspected natural causes following a medical emergency. ICE said agents tried to revive him and EMS performed life-saving measures but he died in the hospital.
Menendez said on Monday that another individual who had been in custody at Delaney Hall died just weeks ago at University Hospital after a possible seizure.
Amol Sinha, executive director at the ACLU of New Jersey, said in a statement Monday that López Cornejo’s death is “another devastating result of the rampant inhumane conditions” at detention centers across the country.
“The Trump administration’s detention and deportation machine continues to terrorize and traumatize communities at an unprecedented level, yet numbers cannot encapsulate the grief and devastation that these abuses cause,” he said.
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