Edwin Jeovanny Lopez Cornejo of Plainfield New Jersey was taken to a hospital from Delaney Detention Center in Newark on August 1 but was pronounced deceased upon arrival. He was a father of a 12-year-old girl, and had been in the United States for 20 years before he was detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 18.
“I have lost him at the hands of immigration authorities,” said Maria Cornejo, the mother of Lopez Cornejo, a 41-year-old Salvadoran national, in a tearful radio interview.
“I don’t know how to heal this pain, because the loss of my son has left me with such deep sorrow,” she said. “These people go around rounding up hardworking folks and I don’t know how my son fell into their hands. I don’t know how they treated him in there.”
Delaney Hall has been often criticized for allegedly serving spoiled food, neglecting medical care, and abusing detainees. Dozens of detainees joined a labor and hunger strike in late May at Delaney Hall, which has drawn daily protests outside the facility.
The day before Cornejo died he called his family and said he was feeling ill and that part of his face and right hand went numb. He suffered from diabetes and epilepsy and took medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures.
“He was an excellent brother, an excellent son, and an excellent father,”said Lopez Corenjo’s Brother, Danilo Lopez. “He worked all the time, always trying to provide the best life for his daughter and for our family.”
There have been recent spikes in ICE arrests in New Jersey, targeting not only undocumented immigrants but also those with open immigration cases such as asylum seekers and green card holders.
GEO Group, the private prison company that operates the detention center, referred questions to ICE, but the agency did not immediately respond to requests for comments about the reported death.
“The pain this has caused me is not something that has happened only to me,” said Cornejo’s mother. “There are many people in this country who are suffering this same kind of pain. Sadly, I am the latest mother to lose her son. If justice is not done, they will continue doing this. And we don’t know how many more people we will lose in this country.”
