GEO Group and ICE claim another life amid its egregious abuses inside Delaney Hall.

NEWARK, NJ [08.04.26] - The New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice is outraged by yet another preventable death connected to Delaney Hall. Every day that this facility remains open places more lives at risk. Delaney Hall has become a symbol of a detention system built on secrecy, cruelty, and perverse profit-reaping incentives. Repeated incidents of medical neglect, unsafe conditions, retaliation, and now multiple deaths have been met with obstruction instead of accountability.

Since its reopening, the facility has been marked by crisis after crisis, including hunger strikes, reports of abusive and inhumane conditions and inadequate medical care, obstruction of government oversight efforts, and the subsequent and illegitimate arrest of Mayor Ras Baraka and the prosecution of an elected member of New Jersey’s federal delegation.  

The untimely death of Edwin Jovanny Lopez Cornejo is not an isolated incident. It is the predictable consequence of a system that prioritizes detention over human dignity and corporate profit over human life. New Jersey has witnessed enough. We must abolish ICE and end immigration detention now.

To that end, we renew our call for the immediate closure of Delaney Hall and all detention centers that profit from imprisoning our immigrant communities. We extend our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Edwin Cornejo and stand with every person who continues to endure these inhumane conditions. 

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