Rep. Ritchie Torres and Rep. George Latimer are calling for an independent investigation into medical staffing at Delaney Hall, after three people died in the Newark immigration detention facility in less than a year.
In a letter sent Aug. 14 to Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, the two New York congressmen urged an immediate investigation into whether Delaney Hall’s medical staffing complies with federal detention standards and whether staffing shortages may have contributed to the deaths.
“Three deaths connected to a single facility in under a year are not isolated incidents. They are a warning that ICE continues to ignore. And ICE cannot be trusted to investigate itself, because the record proves it will not,” Torres and Latimer wrote.
The request follows a congressional oversight visit to Delaney Hall on July 31, where Torres and Latimer observed what they described as harrowing conditions related to detainee care. Facility staff told them that a single on-site physician was responsible for 893 people then in custody.
But the visit left the lawmakers with more questions than answers.
Torres and Latimer are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to examine whether Delaney Hall meets ICE requirements for after-hours physician coverage, response times for sick calls, 24-hour triage of healthcare requests and medical screenings for people entering the facility.
They are also asking whether staffing shortages played a role in the deaths of three people connected to Delaney Hall since it reopened in 2025.
One of them was Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a 39-year-old father who died Aug. 1, roughly six weeks after entering ICE custody.
DHS has said Lopez-Cornejo experienced a “medical emergency” and that medical personnel responded and called 911. His family, however, has raised questions about the medical care he received while in custody. His mother said she was not notified by ICE, and instead learned of his death after receiving a call from a hospital asking her to identify his body.
Lopez-Cornejo’s family has also said he had diabetes and high blood pressure and believes he did not receive the medical care he needed.
The other two deaths include Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian man who died in December, reportedly within a day of arriving at Delaney Hall, and Jose Chajon-Raxon, a Guatemalan man who experienced a seizure-like medical emergency while detained at the facility in July and later died at a hospital after being released from ICE custody.
Delaney Hall is operated by the private prison company GEO Group under a 15-year contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement valued at more than $1 billion. The contract includes services such as “security, maintenance, and food services,” as well as access to recreational amenities, medical care and legal counsel.
During their July visit, Torres and Latimer said no ICE personnel were present at the facility and that detainees were supervised entirely by GEO Group employees. When they asked about the deaths, facility staff described them only as “sudden,” according to the letter.
They also said facility staff told them that the people detained at Delaney Hall had not committed violent crimes.
The lawmakers’ letter also questions how ICE’s own oversight system failed to identify medical care deficiencies at the facility. According to the letter, an ICE internal audit of Delaney Hall found no deficiencies in medical care, despite the three deaths connected to the facility since it reopened. Separately, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has filed a lawsuit against GEO Group, stating the company refused to allow the state Department of Health access to inspect the facility.
“Only an independent investigation can determine whether the medical staffing at Delaney Hall complies with the government’s own standards, and whether the failure to detect and correct this shortage reflects a deeper breakdown in ICE’s oversight of its contractors,” they wrote.
“But whether it closes tomorrow or operates another day, every person held inside it is entitled to medical care that meets the government’s own standards, and your office is obligated to determine why they are not receiving it.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Bronx Times request for comment in time for publication.
Reach Marina Samuel at msamuel@schnepsmedia.com. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
