Newark ICE detainee dies at Delaney Hall amid scrutiny

Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka identified the man who died at Delaney Hall as Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a death that pushed new scrutiny onto a facility already facing questions about care and oversight. Family members said Lopez-Cornejo had not received the medications he needed to treat diabetes. ICE had not responded to requests for comment.

Delaney Hall is a 1,000-bed ICE detention center in Newark run by the GEO Group under a contract the ACLU of New Jersey valued at $1 billion. The facility reopened in May 2025, and since then Newark officials have been locked in litigation with GEO Group over the center’s operation and access for city inspectors. In May 2025, city officials said they were refused entry to Delaney Hall, and later court action sought to get health inspectors inside.

The death of Lopez-Cornejo came after the first fatality at the reopened jail, when advocates identified Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian national, as the detainee who died there. ICE’s death report said Brutus died Dec. 12, 2025, after a medical emergency and listed the cause as suspected natural causes. After that death, the ACLU of New Jersey and other advocates demanded an immediate independent inquiry.

Lopez-Cornejo’s case has sharpened the same concerns. He had been detained June 18 while on his way to work, and family and advocates said he also had high blood pressure and seizures, while alleging that he was denied adequate medical care. The death marked at least the second at Delaney Hall since it reopened, deepening criticism from immigrant advocates, community leaders and elected officials who say the Newark facility is unsafe and poorly monitored.

For Newark, the issue now is not just the loss of one detainee but the record of warnings around the building itself: a billion-dollar contract, denied inspection access, unresolved litigation and a prior death that already triggered calls for independent review. Delaney Hall’s history since reopening has turned the question of accountability into a live public test of whether the city, ICE and GEO Group can prevent another failure inside the jail.