Congress Proposes Mandatory Death Notification After ICE Detainee’s Family Left in Dark

U.S. Reps. Ritchie Torres and George Latimer introduced a bill Thursday that would force Immigration and Customs Enforcement to tell families when their relatives die, land in the hospital, or suffer medical emergencies in detention.

The Families Deserve to Know Act comes after Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died in ICE custody at Delaney Hall in Newark. His mother says she never heard from ICE about his condition or death — a hospital called her to come identify his body.

Lopez-Cornejo, who came from El Salvador nearly two decades ago, was detained June 18. His family says he was denied medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, and a seizure disorder while in custody. The Secretary of Homeland Security disputed the neglect claims.

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Right now, no federal law requires ICE to notify families. The agency runs on an internal policy promising notification only “to the extent possible.”

“A family’s right to know shouldn’t depend on ICE’s good will or an internal memo the agency can rewrite whenever it wants,” Torres said. “But that’s exactly what Edwin Lopez-Cornejo’s mother was left to rely on.”

The bill would also require ICE to report every custody death to Congress and the public. Contractors who don’t notify families would face daily financial penalties. ICE could terminate contracts with repeat violators and bar them from future federal detention work.

Families could sue in federal court if ICE or a contractor fails to notify them — a private right of action written into the bill.

Torres cited the case as part of broader concerns about ICE enforcement in New York, including the arrest of Jeury Concepcion, an American citizen detained in Norwood. He’s called on DHS to investigate what he describes as “brutal detention.”

Latimer, whose district covers Westchester County and parts of the Bronx, visited Delaney Hall and called conditions there “dehumanizing.” He said detainees are “warehoused without proper sanitation and medical care.”

A second recent death: Jose Chajon-Raxon, a Guatemalan migrant who experienced a medical incident at Delaney Hall and was released July 22. He died August 1. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network says his family learned of his death from the hospital, not ICE. DHS told PIX11 the agency isn’t responsible when someone “passes away weeks after leaving their custody.”

The Breakdown

• The bill makes family notification a legal requirement — not an internal policy ICE can change.
• ICE must notify families when a detainee dies, is hospitalized, or has a medical emergency in custody.
• Every in-custody death must be reported to Congress and the public.
• Contractors face daily financial penalties for each day they fail to notify a family. ICE can terminate contracts and ban noncompliant contractors from future federal detention work.
• Families can sue in federal court if they’re not notified.
• The bill doesn’t give ICE new funding or authority — it creates a legal obligation where none exists now.

What This Means for You

Fresno-area voters deciding whether to support or oppose Congress members backing stepped-up immigration enforcement now have a data point on what that enforcement looks like in practice: a federal agency that, under current rules, can let someone die in custody without telling their family. Whether you think tighter immigration control is worth that trade-off is a question you’ll answer with your vote for Congress and President — those are the offices that set ICE’s budget, write its rules, and appoint the people who run it.

What to Watch

This bill has to pass both the House and Senate, then get signed by a President whose administration runs ICE. That’s not certain.

The real question is why it takes a bill at all. ICE already has the authority to notify families — it just doesn’t have to. If the agency can’t be trusted to make a phone call when someone dies, what else is it doing behind closed doors that families never find out about?

And the Lopez-Cornejo family’s claim that he was denied medication raises a separate issue: how many people are dying in ICE custody not because detention itself is inherently dangerous, but because the contractor running the facility decided saving money mattered more than keeping someone alive?