Mother Accuses ICE Contractor of Negligence After Son's Death

López Cornejo, a Salvadoran national who had lived in Plainfield since childhood, died Saturday at University Hospital. In a video interview with the advocacy group Movimiento Cosecha, his mother recounted a final phone call from the night before his passing, where he reported numbness in his face and hand. She remains uncertain whether he received any medical assessment or his prescribed treatments during his six-week detention.

While ICE maintains that staff responded to a medical emergency and provided professional care, political pressure to shutter the facility is mounting. Representative Analilia Mejia and other New Jersey officials are calling for an independent investigation, citing a pattern of systemic failures and the previous death of 41-year-old Jean Wilson Brutus at the same site. Governor Mikie Sherrill and the ACLU of New Jersey have echoed these demands, characterizing the private, for-profit model of detention as a fundamental threat to human rights.