Immigration detention is cruel and inhumane. It’s also deadly.
Conditions in detention facilities are so egregious that the death rate of people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody has more than doubled since the start of President Trump’s second term, reaching its highest level in over a decade.
But despite overwhelming evidence, certain members of Congress have refused to acknowledge what is happening in front of our eyes and to our neighbors.
At a hearing about conditions at Delaney Hall, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Jeff Van Drew, along with witnesses he invited, argued that accounts of medical neglect, inedible food, unsanitary conditions, and abuse at the detention facility were exaggerated or fabricated. He even praised the care available at the facility and questioned the legitimacy of a weeks-long hunger strike by detained people protesting their treatment.
“They get 24-hour emergency care whenever and wherever it’s needed,” he said.
When it was my turn to testify, I set the record straight.
I described what we have documented for months: people denied life-sustaining medication, individuals forced to go without their wheelchair, detainees losing dramatic amounts of weight, and repeated reports of serious medical conditions being ignored. I also spoke the name of Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian man who died one day after arriving at Delaney Hall last December.
I warned that if immediate action was not taken, this would happen again and again. I am devastated that I was right. Two weeks after the hearing, two more people detained at Delaney Hall died, reportedly from inadequate medical care.
Edwin Jovanny Lopez Cornejo, a 39-year-old man who had lived in Plainfield, New Jersey for more than two decades, died after suffering a medical emergency. He was a construction worker, a father to a 12-year-old U.S. citizen daughter, and a beloved member of his community.
According to his family, Mr. Lopez Cornejo had managed diabetes, high blood pressure, and epilepsy with medication for years. His relatives now question whether he consistently received this medicine during the six weeks he spent at Delaney Hall. His brother recalled that even obtaining Tylenol required submitting paperwork and waiting several days.
Rep. Rob Menendez reported that when Mr. Lopez Cornejo suffered his medical emergency, he was seen by nurse practitioners because the facility’s lone physician was neither present nor on call. An ambulance eventually transported him to University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
We now know that around the same time as the hearing, Jose Chajon-Raxon, another man detained at Delaney Hall, experienced a seizure and was transported to the hospital. ICE granted him a temporary medical release before he died. Because he technically was no longer in a detention center, his death was not counted as death in ICE custody.death in ICE custody.
Congress must confront the truth of these stories. They deserve to be told. That’s why I sent a letter to Rep. Van Drew and the subcommittee to enter the stories of Mr. Lopez Cornejo and Mr. Chajon-Raxon into the official congressional record.
But the cases from Delaney Hall are not outliers. In July, 45-year-old Jesus Manuel Arenas Silva died while in ICE custody in Georgia. His family says officers prevented him from bringing most of the medications he needed. Days later, 29-year-old Prisciliano Trejo died from acute leukemia after his family says detention officials delayed urgent medical treatment while he repeatedly complained of severe symptoms.
Taken together, these deaths – along with the more than 50 other deaths in ICE custody since the start of the second Trump administration in 2025 – expose a system in which medical care is inaccessible, opacity is the standard, and ICE evades any accountability.
That is why congressional oversight matters.
When people repeatedly report ignored calls for medical help, stalled emergency care, withheld medication, rancid food, and deplorable conditions, the allegations deserve investigation. Instead of asking whether the abuse is real, Congress should be asking why these reports have remained so consistent across facilities.
And the human cost of these failures extends far beyond the detention center walls.
“I don’t have a way of healing this deep pain,” Mr. Lopez Cornejo’s mother said after losing her son.
His 12-year-old daughter put it even more simply: “I’m going to grow up without a father.”
No congressional hearing can change what happened to their family. But Congress can choose whether those deaths become another statistic or the catalyst for meaningful reform, so it doesn’t happen to another family.
Members of Congress should conduct bipartisan, unannounced, and uncensored inspections of Delaney Hall and other ICE detention facilities, as they are authorized to do. They should speak directly with detained people and those recently released. They should compel testimony from ICE officials and private prison executives responsible for operating these facilities. They should advance legislation, including the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, that would establish stronger standards of care and accountability. Ultimately, they should join the members of the New Jersey delegation and state and local leaders in demanding Delaney Hall, and all detention centers, are shut down.
There is indeed a “false narrative” about Delaney Hall – that it is humane. The tragic evidence shows that this facility is dangerously mismanaged and that the ICE coverup must end.
Amol Sinha is a civil rights attorney and the executive director at the ACLU of New Jersey where he oversees litigation and advocacy to advance the rights of all New Jerseyans.
