ICE detainee deaths highlight medical care failures at GEO Group facilities

Edwin Lopez‑Cornejo, a Salvadoran man with diabetes and high blood pressure, died of a heart attack on Aug. 1 while held at the Delaney Hall ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey, which is operated by the private prison contractor GEO Group. His family says he was denied medication and proper medical attention, stating, “ICE should be responsible, because when he was detained, he was treated horribly.”

The case mirrors the 2022 death of Chicago business owner Nenko Gantchev, who also suffered from diabetes and died of a heart attack while detained at GEO Group’s North Lake Correctional Facility in Michigan. Gantchev’s family reported that promised cardiology referrals and an echocardiogram never occurred. Both incidents have revived scrutiny over the quality of health care provided to detainees in privately run ICE facilities. The Medical Justice Alliance, represented by Dr. William Weber, emphasizes that detainees have a constitutional right to medical care and points to widespread discrepancies in treatment across the system.