A legal defense organization asked New Jersey authorities to investigate the death of an immigrant in ICE custody at Delaney Hall, the detention center located in Newark that has been the subject of criticism and protests over the reported conditions within its facilities.
Envision Freedom Fund, an organization that pays immigration bonds to help release detained people and provides support to families affected by immigration detention, asked the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office to open an independent investigation. He also demanded that ICE release all medical records related to 39-year-old Edwin Jeovanny López Cornejo.
Cornejo, originally from El Salvador and resident in the United States for almost two decades, died Saturday at the New Jersey facility. He is survived by a 12-year-old daughter.
According to the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, ICE agents detained him on June 18 outside his home and did not provide him with the medications he needed to treat his health conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure and a seizure disorder.
On July 31, Cornejo called his mother to tell her that he felt sick and had lost feeling in half his face and his right hand.
«Edwin’s family should not have received a call to identify his body. “Edwin should have been reunited with them alive,” said Rosa Santana, co-executive director of the Envision Freedom Fund. «His family deserves full transparency, accountability and justice. Furthermore, Delaney must close and we must end the immigration detention system that continues to put lives at risk.
ICE has noted that Cornejo received adequate medical care during his detention. However, his relatives say that the center’s staff did not respond until after he collapsed, even though he had requested medical assistance.
«I am going to grow up without a father; “They didn’t even let me see him one last time before he died,” said his daughter Ashley.
Cornejo’s death comes after months of criticism against Delaney Hall, where detainees staged a hunger strike to denounce conditions inside the facility, including problems with food quality and medical care.
During a visit to the facility in June, U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat told our sister publication, amNewYork, that he personally spoke with detainees who he said had not received necessary medical care.
«I met a woman who had given birth two months before she was arrested. There was also a complaint from a woman who suffered an abortion inside the center and another who is currently pregnant, who expressed concerns about the medical services they received. This is an aberration. “This is a place that should close immediately,” Espaillat said.
Following Cornejo’s death, a GoFundMe account was created to help his family cover funeral expenses.
