The recent death of a Salvadoran father detained at a migrant facility in Newark, New Jersey, has sparked fresh calls to shut down the facility — and to terminate the federal contracts of a multibillion-dollar private jailer facing accusations of medical neglect at lockups across the country.
The company GEO Group has a 15-year, $1 billion contract to operate Delaney Hall, where Edwin Jovanny Lopez Cornejo was held before he was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital on Aug. 1. Lopez Cornejo, whom ICE identified as 41 years old, was at least the second person to die while in custody at the privately run jail.
Rep. Rob Menendez said he was informed of another death of a detainee released to a hospital after experiencing a seizure inside Delaney Hall in July.
State Attorney General Jennifer Davenport on Friday issued subpoenas to find out whether GEO Group violated detainees’ civil rights at Delaney Hall.
Detainees, their advocates and local elected officials have repeatedly denounced what they describe as serious healthcare failures at the facility. A Gothamist investigation identified more than 70 lawsuits filed by Delaney Hall detainees who say they faced medical neglect between May 2025 and June of this year.
The pattern of complaints over healthcare problems extends to the dozens of other facilities GEO Group operates nationwide. The company has contract obligations worth $1.1 billion from the federal government in just the 2026 fiscal year, which ends in September, according to federal contract data.
Another large for-profit jailer, CoreCivic, has contracts totaling more than $530 million this year, according to federal data.
Congressional Democrats say if their party gains control of the House or Senate in this fall’s midterm elections, they intend to investigate and hold the Trump administration and contractors like GEO Group accountable.
“The inhumane and unacceptable conditions at Delaney Hall and other GEO Group sites shock the conscience,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, in a written statement. “The American people deserve transparency, accountability and independent investigations into the role Donald Trump has played in enabling deadly detention conditions and his administration’s violent mass deportation machine.”
New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, a fellow Democrat, has called on the federal government to “strip GEO Group of its billion-dollar contract and shutter Delaney Hall.”
GEO Group spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said the company “ strongly refutes these allegations” of inadequate medical care at its detention centers. He did not respond to questions about elected officials’ calls to terminate its contracts or Menendez’s account of a third death of a Delaney Hall detainee.
In an unsigned written statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said all detainees are provided with comprehensive medical care, including dental, mental health services and 24-hour emergency care. ICE has previously stated that Lopez Cornejo received proper medical treatment and prescribed medication while in custody.
