(New York) – The death over the weekend of Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a 41-year-old from El Salvador, at the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark is the 53rd known death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the start of this administration. That represents nearly four times the death rate under the Biden administration, or two and a half times the rate during the first Trump administration. Deaths are increasing faster than the detained population, pushing the mortality rate in ICE custody to its highest level in nearly two decades, higher even than at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sharp rise comes amid persistent reports of dangerously inadequate medical and mental health care and weakened independent oversight.
Testifying before members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a Spotlight Forum last week on abusive conditions in ICE custody, PHR Medical Director Dr. Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, urged Congress to take immediate action to prevent further loss of life. Reflecting findings from PHR’s analysis of dozens of autopsy and medical records of individuals who died in ICE detention, Dr. Heisler called on Congress to ensure that ICE reduce the number of people in immigration detention, use detention only as a measure of last resort, guarantee timely and appropriate health care, restore meaningful independent oversight, and ensure transparent, thorough investigations into every death in custody. (View video of Dr. Heisler’s testimony.)
Mr. Lopez-Cornejo’s death is a terrible reminder of the lethality of the United States’ rapidly expanding immigration detention system and should not be treated as an isolated tragedy. Every person deprived of their liberty under international and domestic law remains entitled to dignity, health care, and respect for their life. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security must be held accountable for protecting the people in their custody. Congress must use its oversight and funding authority to ensure that they do so.
For more information about how the United States is failing to meet its obligations to respect and ensure the right to life and adequate health care in detention, see our recent report, Dying in Detention: Rising Deaths in an Expanding U.S. Immigration Detention System, co-authored with Human Rights Watch.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.