Rep. Rob Menendez says Edwin Jovanny Lopez-Cornejo sought medical help before collapsing at the Newark ICE detention center.

The immigrant detainee who died after a medical emergency at Newark’s Delaney Hall over the weekend had asked for help several times before his death, U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez said this week.

Edwin Jovanny Lopez-Cornejo, 41, of El Salvador, complained to guards at the detention facility that he felt tired and dizzy as he sat in the cafeteria Saturday afternoon, just hours before he died Aug. 1 at University Hospital in Newark.

“He walked to the medical unit, where he described his symptoms and collapsed,” Menendez said during a call with reporters this week. “He then coded, was given CPR, 911 was called, and EMS arrived at Delaney Hall roughly 37 minutes later.”

EMS workers took over and performed their own life-saving measures. But they also determined Lopez-Cornejo was too fragile to be moved.

First responders eventually transported him to the hospital at about 2:40 p.m., where he died about 45 minutes later, Menendez said.

Lopez-Cornejo is believed to have died from cardiac arrest, Menendez said, though the cause of death remains unclear. ICE also told the congressman that Lopez-Cornejo had not experienced a medical episode at the detention facility before Saturday, despite his mother saying he requested medical assistance several times after arriving June 18.

He is the third immigrant detainee known to have died after being held at Delaney Hall, which reopened in May 2025 after ICE signed a 15-year, $1 billion contract with private prison operator GEO Group to run the site.

Since then, detainees have described squalid living conditions inside the 1,000-bed facility on Doremus Avenue, including foul water, inedible food, and a lack of basic medical care.

Both ICE and GEO Group have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or negligence.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, has defended the facility’s medical care, saying it is “the best health care many aliens have received in their entire lives.”

“Their standard position is that everyone who needs to receive medication receives it regularly, routinely,” Menendez said of the agency. “That is not what I have heard as a general matter with respect to individuals being detained at Delaney Hall.”

Lopez-Cornejo’s family blamed Delaney Hall staff for his death during a Facebook Live event Monday.

Lopez-Cornejo dealt with several chronic health conditions and needed medication to manage his diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures, according to his family.

“He had medical supplies because he suffered from health issues, and they did not provide them to him as they should have,” his brother, Daniel Lopez, told Cosecha New Jersey. “Because of that, perhaps, was my brother’s death.”

A DHS spokesperson disputed the claim, saying, “While in custody, Lopez-Cornejo received proper medical care and was seen by medical professionals.”

His death comes less than eight months after Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian immigrant, died at the facility from “suspected natural causes” one day after ICE agents arrested him.

It also follows the recently disclosed death of another, still-unidentified immigrant detainee who died at University Hospital in July after suffering a medical emergency during the intake process.

Menendez disclosed that death during the same call with reporters, saying ICE did not publicly report it because the detainee had technically been released to the hospital before dying and was therefore no longer in the agency’s custody.

Menendez sympathized with the families of the deceased and said ICE and GEO Group maintain they did everything they could for Lopez-Cornejo.

“In their view, they provided timely medical care to Edwin,” he said. “He received medical attention under the care of nurse practitioners … And they followed their protocols.”

He urged the public to speak out against what he described as abuse.

“No one’s safe in Trump’s America. And this pain and trauma is going to arrive at each of our doorsteps eventually,” Menendez said. “I don’t know what else the American people need to see.”