Family alleges medical negligence after man dies in ICE detention

Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a 41-year-old Salvadoran man held at Delaney Hall in Newark, died after what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement called a medical emergency, and his family is alleging medical negligence in custody. ICE said Lopez-Cornejo was pronounced dead at 8:55 a.m. at University Hospital in Newark.

The family said Lopez-Cornejo had entered ICE custody healthy. A relative said, “He entered into ICE custody healthy,” while another account from family discussions said he had complained that officers would only give him medication “when they wanted,” not when he needed it. Those claims place the focus on whether detention staff responded quickly enough once his condition worsened and whether his medical complaints were documented and acted on inside Delaney Hall.

The death was the second at Delaney Hall in eight months, intensifying scrutiny of the Newark facility. ICE’s detainee-death report shows that Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old citizen of Haiti, died there on Dec. 12, 2025. The agency’s report says Brutus was born on Aug. 7, 1984, and arrived at the Hidalgo Port of Entry in Texas on June 20, 2023. After Brutus died, the ACLU of New Jersey called for an immediate independent inquiry, and advocates, activists and community leaders pressed for answers about the care he received before his death.

The pattern has fed broader concerns about medical care in immigration detention. American Oversight said a 2024 study examining 52 deaths in ICE custody from 2017 through 2021 found persistent medical care failures, and that 95% of those deaths could likely have been prevented with adequate medical care. Reuters later reported that deaths in ICE custody reached a two-decade high in 2025, adding to pressure on the agency as critics question whether its detention standards and oversight mechanisms are strong enough to prevent fatal delays.

Outside Delaney Hall, protesters gathered for a vigil after Lopez-Cornejo’s death, and calls to close or investigate the facility grew louder. The case now sits at the center of a familiar national fight over who is responsible when a person dies in federal immigration custody, what records are released to families, and how quickly officials account for failures once a detainee is gone.