Edwin Jovanny Lopez Cornejo told his mother on Friday that his right hand and face were numb. ICE had confined him inside Delaney Hall, the Newark detention facility operated by GEO Group, where he could not independently obtain prescribed medication, choose an outside doctor, or leave after reporting numbness in his right hand and face. An ambulance removed him from the facility on Saturday, August 1, and he was declared dead upon arrival at the hospital, according to Status Coup.
His mother, María Cornejo, still does not know what Delaney Hall personnel did after Edwin reported those symptoms. She does not know whether an examination occurred, who conducted it, what was documented, whether staff administered his medication, or how much time passed before anyone called for emergency help. ICE controlled Edwin’s detention. GEO Group and Delaney Hall personnel controlled his daily medical access and the response to his symptoms.
Edwin had reportedly lived in the United States for 20 years after arriving as a child. ICE detained him on June 18 while he was on his way to work. He was also the father of a 12-year-old girl who was denied a visit with him shortly before his death. ICE detention took Edwin from his job and community, then Delaney Hall separated his daughter from him before she lost her father permanently.
María said Edwin lived with diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures. During their final call, he told her that he was not feeling well and expected to be examined. “He said his right hand and face were numb,” she recalled. The next news his family received was that an ambulance had taken him from Delaney Hall and that he was dead.
“I do not want this to go unpunished,” María said. Her demand begins with the records that can establish what happened: whether an examination occurred, what symptoms staff documented, what medication Edwin was prescribed, whether Delaney Hall administered it as directed, when emergency services were contacted, and what decisions personnel made before the ambulance arrived.
Status Coup reported being told that Delaney Hall deprived Edwin of his medication. María said she does not know whether he was receiving it. The medication-administration record can establish what was prescribed, when doses were scheduled, what staff administered, and whether any medication was missed or withheld.
Civil immigration detention stripped Edwin of medical autonomy. He could not go to a pharmacy, contact his own physician, drive to an emergency room, or remove himself from the personnel controlling his access to care. ICE placed him in detention under GEO Group’s control. GEO Group and Delaney Hall personnel then controlled his access to medication, examination, emergency transport, and outside treatment.
His daughter’s denied visit belongs in the record of what Delaney Hall took from his family. The facility controlled whether Edwin could see his child while he was alive and denied that contact shortly before his death. His daughter lost the chance to see her father, and his family lost the opportunity to witness his condition for themselves.
María says neither ICE nor GEO Group has explained Edwin’s final hours or provided her with the detention and medical information they control. His mother has been left to reconstruct her son’s death from their final phone call, an ambulance transport, and the symptoms he described before he died.
Edwin’s death follows the death of Jean Wilson Brutus after detention at Delaney Hall in December 2025. After Brutus died, immigrant-rights advocates demanded an independent investigation into medical care at the facility and accused ICE of delaying its public notice. Advocates also documented recurring ambulance activity and repeated medical emergencies at the detention center.
Brutus’s death establishes that ICE continued detaining immigrants at Delaney Hall while GEO Group continued operating the facility after public warnings about medical care, emergency response, and transparency. Edwin’s final symptoms and the unanswered record of his care remain the controlling facts in his case. According to his mother, he entered detention with diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures. Six weeks later, he reported numbness in his face and hand and died the following day.
GEO Group operates Delaney Hall through a 15-year ICE contract valued at approximately $1 billion and designed to hold as many as 1,000 people. The federal government pays the company to confine immigrants while GEO Group controls their daily conditions and access to care. ICE chose the private corporation that held Edwin and remained responsible for the detention system in which he died.
Immigrant-rights advocates have reported that Delaney Hall denied detained people access to prescribed medication or treatment for serious health conditions. They have also described disrupted family visits, inadequate food, unsafe conditions, transfers without warning, and restricted communication with loved ones. Those reports form the institutional context surrounding Edwin’s final call and María’s unanswered questions about what personnel did after he reported numbness.
ICE detained Edwin while he was traveling to work. GEO Group held Edwin while, according to María, he lived with diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures. He told his mother that his face and right hand were numb. Delaney Hall denied his daughter a visit. An ambulance removed him the next day, and his family still has no complete account of what personnel did after he reported those symptoms.
María wants the truth about what happened to her son while ICE detained him and GEO Group controlled his daily care. Edwin’s family is owed the complete detention and medical records, the emergency-response timeline, the names and actions of the personnel responsible for his treatment, and accountability for every decision made between his final warning and his death.
Edwin’s mother heard him describe numbness in his face and hand, and his daughter was denied the chance to see him. Americans Against ICE documents deaths in custody, private detention companies, medical-neglect allegations, and the records families are forced to fight for after ICE takes control of their loved ones.
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