By YouTube Screenshot|Facebook
Edwin Jeovanny Lopez Cornejo should be alive today.
Envision mourns the death of Edwin, a 39-year-old who immigrated from El Salvador nearly 20 years ago and the father of a 12-year-old daughter. He died Aug. 1 after experiencing a medical emergency while detained at Delaney Hall. We extend our deepest condolences to his mother, Maria Cornejo, his daughter, Ashley, his loved ones, and everyone grieving this devastating loss.
We stand with the family and immigrant rights organizations in demanding a full investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and the immediate release of all medical records by GEO Group and ICE. If you’d like to support the family with funeral arrangements and other expenses during this difficult time, you can contribute by clicking the fundraiser linked here.
During the hunger strike earlier this year, people detained at Delaney warned that medically vulnerable lives were at risk if conditions (barriers to medical care, delays in receiving treatment, and neglect of serious health conditions) did not change.
Of the 303 people Envision has freed this year, dozens of them have been from Delaney and testify to the horrors experienced there.
ICE claims “while in custody, Lopez Cornejo received proper medical care and was seen by medical professionals.” Why then did his mother receive a call from Edwin the night before his death saying he didn’t feel well and part of his face and right hand had gone numb?
This is the 23rd person to die in ICE detention this year and the second at Delaney since reopening in 2025.
“Edwin’s family should not receive a call asking to identify his body, as Edwin should have been safely reunited with them alive,” says Rosa Santana, Co-executive Director of Envision. “His family deserves full transparency, accountability, and justice. In addition, Delaney must be closed, and we must end the system of immigration detention that continues to put lives at risk.”
Immigration detention strips people of one of the most basic human rights: the right to freedom. It inflicts lasting trauma on those who are detained, separates families, weakens communities, and reinforces systemic inequities. While the federal government has long argued that detention deters migration, locking people in detention has never stopped people from fleeing danger, seeking safety, or trying to provide for their families. The real solution is not more detention, but an immigration system rooted in dignity, justice, and human rights, one that protects the well-being of all people.
