ICE officials did not report the death of someone who had been detained at Delaney Hall immigration detention center last month because they had technically “released” him in the middle of a medical emergency, a U.S. congressman alleged Monday.
The person, who has not yet been publicly identified, was granted a “discretionary release” from ICE custody and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital — and ICE did not report the death publicly due to a recent policy change, Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Monday.
Delaney Hall, which is in Newark, New Jersey, has been the subject of protests for months, and detainees there launched a hunger and labor strike in May, demanding freedom and due process in their immigration cases. Among the many issues they raised were allegations of medical neglect.
Menendez conducted an oversight visit of the immigration jail on Monday, in the wake of news that a man detained at Delaney Hall named Edwin Jeovanny Lopez Cornejo had died Saturday following a medical emergency. ICE publicly acknowledged Lopez Cornejo’s death.
But after the site visit, the lawmaker announced that “another death occurred just weeks ago at Delaney Hall,” in addition to Lopez Cornejo’s.
“An individual that had just been brought there suffered what they believe was a seizure,” Menendez said in a video posted to social media. “But you didn’t hear about this because they released him to University Hospital [in Newark], so he was no longer in ICE custody.”
Menendez noted that ICE changed its policy around reporting deaths in custody in June. Under the new policy, people who die shortly after being released are not required to be reported to government regulators, or in the public statements that ICE usually issues following deaths in custody.
…
The change, Menendez said, “is meant to keep the number of deaths that are being reported in ICE custody to as low of a number as possible.”
Separately, on a call with reporters Monday, Mendez said the medical incident happened as the unidentified man was being processed as a new detainee at Delaney Hall, and that officials decided to release him.
“The nurses who do intake responded, it escalated, 911 was called. EMS arrived about 35, 40 minutes later ― but in this instance, ICE made the determination to provide a discretionary release,” Menendez said, before explaining the recent policy change concerning the reporting of ICE detainee deaths. “That person had lost consciousness, most likely it was a seizure. University Hospital made the determination upon that person’s initial intake that they had experienced a seizure.”
“That person passed shortly after arriving at University Hospital,” he continued. “However, since they were released from ICE custody, University Hospital was responsible for notification ― that incident was not reported to [the Office of Professional Responsibility] or [the Office of Inspector General].”
…
Two people who’d been detained at Delaney Hall have died in about a two-week period, Menendez said.
Lopez Cornejo, a husband and father who’d lived in the United States for decades, had complained of numbness in his face and right hand on Friday, according to interviews his family gave to Radio Jornalera and Radio Cosecha. He had been taking medication for seizures and high blood pressure, but it wasn’t clear if he had been provided that medication while in detention.
…
Before Menendez’s comments about the undisclosed death of a Delaney Hall detainee last month, Lopez Cornejo’s passing was believed to be the second at Delaney Hall since December, when a Haitian man, Jean Wilson Brutus, died just hours after entering custody at Delaney Hall.


