The death of a New Jersey father at Delaney Hall immigration detention center this week has reignited long-held frustration about federal agencies’ alleged mistreatment of detainees and their handling of the dead and dying in custody.

Many of the details surrounding the death of 39-year-old Edwin Jovanny Lopez-Cornejo remain unclear almost a week after he died on Saturday. According to a statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement — which misstated his age, according to family members — “a 41-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador who was detained at Delaney Hall Detention Facility, was pronounced deceased Aug. 1 by medical personnel at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.”

Family members, alongside a host of New Jersey lawmakers and immigration advocates, characterize the story differently: Lopez-Cornejo, the father of a 12-year-old girl, called his mom to report that he wasn’t feeling well, and claimed that Delaney Hall staff members weren’t giving him his medication.

“He couldn’t feel half of his face or right hand,” said Jorge Torres, a member of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, who spoke alongside Lopez-Cornejo’s mother, Maria, at the press conference Tuesday. “Edwin, like countless other people detained at Delaney Hall and other ICE prisoners across the country, had not received his proper medication regime, and for his diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures.”

Family members and local lawmakers argue that Lopez-Cornejo was the victim not only of what his mother called “medical negligence,” but a wider alleged plot by the Department of Homeland Security to release the dead and dying to area hospitals, and avoid adding their names to the growing list of deaths at federal facilities. ICE reports 55 deaths at detention centers nationally since January 2025 — but lawmakers and immigration experts argue that the number could be much higher, given the opaque and ever-changing nature of DHS agencies’ reporting policies.

That confusion was laid bare after Lopez-Cornejo’s death: Lawmakers say he was one of three people to die at Delaney Hall in less than a year, including 41-year-old Jean Wilson Brutus, who died at the facility in December on the same day of his intake examination. Rep. Rob Menendez said he learned of a third death at the facility this week during an unannounced oversight visit; but said ICE didn’t count the death in its mandatory report to Congress because the person was released and technically declared dead at a local hospital.

“I have often found that ICE’s accounting of many incidents are not accurate,” Menendez said Monday during a press call. “My conversations with both advocates and detained individuals is that they are increasing the number of people being moved into Delaney Hall, and increasing the number of people being moved out. So there is an immense amount of transition at the facility, and I raise the question with the number of individuals there … that has to create a challenging environment to administer healthcare properly.”

On Thursday, a delegation of House Democrats in Jersey sent a public letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin detailing “disturbing allegations” of “inadequate care for the medically vulnerable.” And they criticized a directive reportedly issued this week by ICE acting Director David Venturella to rescind a policy requiring the agency to notify the public when a detainee dies within 30 days of their release from custody. (A DHS official confirmed the change with The Washington Post, saying it was “common sense” that ICE should not be responsible for deaths happening outside facilities.)

“That policy existed for a reason: our government’s responsibility does not end at the detention center gate,” reads the letter, signed by nine New Jersey Democrats including its sponsor, Rep. Analilia Mejia. “Eliminating that transparency does not change the facts, but can serve to hide information from the American public purposefully.”

In a statement to MS NOW, a DHS spokesperson disputed the claims about Lopez-Cornejo’s mistreatment and inadequate medical care at ICE facilities. The statement read, in part:

“ICE is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments. Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout their stay. … At no time during detention is a detained noncitizen denied emergency care.”

Deaths at immigration detention centers have increased rapidly under Trump, experts say.

“The mortality rate of deaths in ICE custody is at its highest level in over a decade and has more than doubled since Trump’s second term began. The rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration, and more than two and a half times as high as that of the first Trump administration,” reads a June 2026 report by the Human Rights Watch.

A recent analysis by Physicians for Human Rights looked at 39 reported deaths under ICE and found that in all cases, “the government did not publicly provide sufficient information about the circumstances of death or about the medical care provided in detention to support a definitive clinical assessment.”

Scrutiny is mounting this week over how the federal government documents the dead. The Pentagon recently altered requirements for how military deaths in the Iran war are recorded, lowering the number of casualties reported on its website from the Middle East conflict.

Lopez-Cornejo’s death, and that of the person who Menendez says died at Delaney Hall in July, have not been added to ICE’s detainee death database as of this week. It’s unclear how their deaths might be treated based on ICE’s policies.

Now, Lopez-Cornejo’s family is demanding an independent investigation into his death from New Jersey’s attorney general, access to his medical records and the release of all detainees at the facility. They also called on Gov. Mikie Sherrill to investigate the conditions at Delaney Hall. 

“Edwin should still be alive. His death demands more than condolences. It demands justice. No one, no one should lose their life in detention because of neglect, indifference, or a system that fails to protect basic human dignity,” Torres said. 

MS NOW reporter Laura Haefeli contributed to this report. 

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