FOLLOWING DELANEY HALL’S FIRST DEATH SINCE REOPENING, IMMIGRANT ADVOCATES DEMAND ANSWERS AND INVESTIGATION

Newark, NJ [Dec 19, 2025] - Advocates, activists, and community leaders demand immediate independent inquiry and answers related to the death of Jean Wilson Brutus, a community member detained at Delaney Hall earlier this month and transported to University Hospital on December 12th. Delaney Hall was reopened by GEO Group under a 15-year, billion-dollar contract with ICE earlier this year. Despite legal challenges, documented patterns of inadequate care, dangerous conditions inside, and sustained community opposition, the facility remains open and is regularly marked by scandal.

ICE’s policy when a person dies in custody requires that the agency inform the public “in a timely, accurate, and appropriate manner” by posting a notice on its public website within two business days. The notice for Jean Wilson Brutus was posted a full week later, laying bare the serious oversight concerns advocates have warned about since the moment ICE chose GEO Group and expedited the reopening of Delaney Hall. 

“I was going through the visitor check-in process when I overheard one of the guards’ walkie-talkies. I heard, ‘Medical emergency at intake, seizure. Call 911.’ Immediately afterwards, guards were instructed to switch their devices to a different channel. I was then escorted away to continue my visit. When I returned outside, I was told two ambulances came,” said Melissa Munoz, an “Eyes on ICE” volunteer at Delaney Hall who was visiting another person in detention on December 11. Melissa uses an alias to continue visiting loved ones at Delaney Hall without facing retribution.

“I was standing outside of the facility on Thursday evening, speaking with people waiting in below-freezing temperatures for a chance to visit their detained loved ones, when I observed an ambulance entering through Delaney Hall’s main gate,” said Karina Fernandez, an “Eyes on ICE” volunteer at Delaney Hall. “This caused confusion among many volunteers, especially since we’re used to witnessing ambulances and EMS services enter through the side gate.” 

Footage of an ambulance was captured by “Eyes on ICE” activists who host daily vigils in support of visitors and family members of those detained. Two ambulances from University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, went into Delaney Hall. EMTs brought someone out in a stretcher, who was later reported to be Jean Wilson Brutus. When attempting to leave the premises, the gate would not open, as GEO Group employees were prioritizing a van of newly detained people coming into the facility, rather than the person in the ambulance. GEO Group employees waited almost five life-saving minutes to open the gate for the ambulances. Once the gate was open, a GEO Group employee entered the ambulance, and the two ambulances immediately hurried to the hospital. Ambulances entering the building and 911 calls are a regular occurrence at Delaney Hall. According to a FOIA issued by Scripps News Service, there were 12 emergency calls to the building between September 1 and November 17.

“Let’s make one thing clear. Jean Wilson Brutus didn’t die because there wasn’t enough oversight at Delaney Hall. He didn’t die because the GEO Group has insufficient resources for food or care. He also didn’t die because people in his community didn’t care or weren’t paying attention to the issue,” said Amy Torres, Executive Director of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. “Jean Wilson Brutus died because immigration detention exists for one reason: to make immigrants into political scapegoats and support an agenda fueled by racism and profit. Jean Wilson Brutus died because America now sees immigrants as subhuman. He died because corporations like GEO Group see him as a line item in an Excel sheet.”

“A 41-year-old man is dead after being held in ICE custody in New Jersey. A human being has died under government control. Yet, ICE’s public response reads less like accountability and more like an attempt to justify his death, offering no real information about what happened or what medical care he received, while foregrounding criminalizing details as if that’s what the public should focus on,” said Katy Sastre, Executive Director of First Friends of New Jersey and New York. “That is not transparency. That is a strategy to deflect responsibility and erase a person’s humanity after he’s already been taken from this world. This is the predictable result of a white supremacist enforcement regime: Black immigrants and immigrants of color are treated as threats first and as human beings last. And when something goes wrong, institutions try to bury the truth and manage the optics. We refuse to let this man be reduced to a narrative meant to excuse his death. Our communities deserve care, freedom, and answers — not dehumanization and death behind locked doors.”

“When individuals are detained, the government assumes full responsibility for their safety and well-being. The ‘Eyes on ICE’ activists have been outside daily, and we have seen repeated medical emergencies, delayed care, and now a death at Delaney Hall,” said Sally Pillay, Executive Director with the Mami Chelo Foundation and Board Member of First Friends of New Jersey and New York and “Eyes on ICE” Delaney Hall volunteer. “This demonstrates a systemic failure, not isolated incidents: Detention is becoming a death sentence. We call for immediate transparency, an independent investigation into medical practices at Delaney Hall, and the use of humane alternatives to detention, especially for individuals with known medical vulnerabilities. No one should lose their life simply because of their immigration paperwork." 

The United States currently operates the world’s largest civil immigration detention system, a sprawling network that has surpassed its own record by confining more than 65,000 people. Since October of this year, over 30 people have died in ICE custody. This is the highest number of deaths since 2005 and puts 2025 on track to become the deadliest on record for people detained by ICE.

"I live just 5 miles from Delaney Hall, where hundreds of our immigrant brothers and sisters are held in troubling conditions awaiting their right to due process. Immigration and detention center officials have a duty of care for those they detain,” said Sister Susan Francois, Assistant Congregation Leader of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace and a regular “Eyes on ICE” volunteer outside Delaney Hall. “The statement from ICE on the death of Mr. Brutus focuses on his alleged crimes rather than the government's repeated failure to provide humane treatment at Delaney Hall. His death is a tragedy, as is all loss of human life. We cannot be silent in the face of the cruelty being done in our name.”

“Let us open our hearts so that we can see through all the walls, fences, barbed wire, and dehumanizing language and remember that Jean Wilson Brutus was a human being loved by God,” said Kathy O’Leary, ambassador of peace with Pax Christi USA and a spearhead of the “Eyes on ICE” initiative at Delaney Hall. “May we also reflect on the part that we all play in the grave and intrinsic evil of mass detention and deportation.” 

The news of Jean Wilson Brutus’ death broke just one year after GEO Group was awarded the 15-year, billion-dollar contract to reopen Delaney Hall. In April of this year, the City of Newark sued to issue a stop-work order after being denied entry for required local certifications and permits; however, the facility opened in violation of the order as planned on May 1st. Since then, the site continues to be embroiled in scandal. Nine days after its opening, Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested outside the facility gates, and Congressional District 9 Representative LaMonica McIver was charged with felonies related to her duties to conduct an oversight visit of the facility. 

“I'm furious that this has happened. I've been protesting at Delaney Hall since the facility opened in May, and have said repeatedly that someone was going to die here soon,” said Alison Perkon, a volunteer with “Eyes on ICE.” “Every time I'd hear about another death in ICE custody, my stomach would drop in fear that it was someone at Delaney Hall. Today, that fear was realized. There's a saying among volunteers outside the facility: ‘The cruelty is the point’. Mr. Brutus' untimely and unnecessary death, along with the others who have died in ICE custody, proves it.”

In June, Delaney Hall again gained national attention when, following a prisoner strike related to insufficient meals, inedible food, and lack of drinking water, several detained immigrants escaped through an external wall that was later revealed to be constructed of plaster and chicken wire. The site is regularly the subject of both inquiry and outrage as conditions inside remain hazardous and callous to human rights. Delaney Hall has been marked by injury, death, and abuse, including when it was previously an ICE detention facility over the last decade. 

“AFSC offers our deepest condolences to the loved ones and community of Jean Wilson Brutus. His life mattered, and his death, in addition to the three others reported today by ICE, is a condemnation of the agency’s daily violence and the indifference of decision-makers in their comfortable offices,” said Jenny Garcia, Program Coordinator at American Friends Service Committee New Jersey. “The news of Mr. Brutus’ hospitalization caused concern amongst other community members detained at Delaney Hall. The news of his premature death at the hands of ICE will echo as anxiety through thousands of loved ones hoping to be reunited with the people they love. We affirm, without hesitation, the demand to free everyone detained at Delaney Hall and shut the prison down for good.” 

“Every human life is sacred. Jean Wilson Brutus came to this country seeking a future as a New American, and instead was caged by ICE and spent his last days in Delaney Hall, a private prison profiting off suffering, while people report conditions so monstrous we warned they would cost lives. Even in death, they withheld dignity, failing to report it immediately,” said Charlene Walker, Executive Director of Faith in New Jersey. “We will not accept a system that treats our beloved as disposable. May God continue to walk with all who knew him and loved him, and may we honor his life with action: shut Delaney Hall down and end the mass detention that terrorizes our communities across this nation.”

“We mourn the loss of Jean Wilson Brutus' life at Delaney Hall. This tragedy is another devastating example of people dying in ICE custody while being detained in deplorable conditions,” said Ami Kachalia, Campaign Strategist at ACLU-NJ. “ Just last night, four deaths were reported at immigration facilities across the country, signaling an alarming pattern of nationwide cruelty. This should not happen. We demand answers, accountability from ICE, and an end to immigration detention once and for all.” 

"We mourn the deaths of Jean Wilson Brutus and every person who has died in ICE custody. We all deserve a fair chance at justice, but Jean and too many others will not have that opportunity,” said Hera Mir, Policy Associate at AAPI New Jersey. “Courts have repeatedly ruled ICE detention facilities to be unsafe and inhumane. We call for a full investigation into these deaths, greater oversight, and an end to these dangerous facilities." 

“Even in death, ICE will criminalize human life to justify their violence and human rights abuses inside these prisons and on the streets. Volunteers heard rumors of Mr. Brutu’s death and yet the agency waited one week to inform the public. There is nothing natural about dying in a detention center. There is nothing natural about people being ripped from their communities and people’s lives to be mistreated and disappeared within ICE’s detention system. We will not forget our dead and will not stop fighting until all people are freed. The criminalization of our communities must end and we will use this pain and rage to organize until all immigration detention centers are shut down for good.” said Catalina Adorno, Volunteer with Movimiento Cosecha

“The tragic loss of Jean Wilson Brutus is a prime example of the deadly reality of immigrant detention, said Nedia Morsy, Executive Director of Make the Road New Jersey. “This loss reverberates far beyond detention walls. It sends a message to immigrant families across the country that their lives are treated as expendable. No one should die because they were seeking safety, stability, and family reunification. We grieve this loss and stand with the loved ones left behind. We will continue to fight for care, dignity, and respect for human life.”

“ICE’s belated report of an urgent tragedy caused by its inhumane conditions and cruel neglect, and its defamation of the deceased to justify a death on its watch, has all the obvious signs of culpability and cover-up. But no whitewash in public statements can wash the blood off its hands,” said Adam McGovern, Legislative Strategist with Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center. “Passing the Immigrant Trust Act is the best chance we have for these atrocities not to spread and for that stain not to be shared. Who you are and where you came from are things to be proud of in a diverse country, not a cause for a summary death sentence by a system set up to evade accountability and profit from depriving people of their rights. This season of charity and kindness is a time for our leaders to show we are a community of conscience.”

“Under the Trump Administration, deaths in detention centers have risen, and details have been sparse, with countless deaths marked as natural causes. This death at Delaney Hall is one too many,“ said Amanda Dominguez, Community Organizer with New Labor. “Our community members are dying in detention. This is unacceptable. We demand an end to mass detention and transparency in the deaths of our community members. ¡Ni una detención más, ni una muerte más!”

“A 41-year-old man dying from natural causes rarely happens,” said Louise Walpin and Rosalie Wong, co-leads of WADEIn New Jersey. “This needs to be investigated, along with the conditions at Delaney Hall that may have enabled this senseless loss of life.” 

If you have Eyes on ICE in your neighborhood, call DIRE at 888-DIRE-SOS to notify the volunteer rapid response network.

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New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice (NJAIJ) is the state’s largest immigration coalition. Alongside 60+ organizations across the state, NJAIJ fights for policies that empower and protect immigrants.

“Eyes on ICE” is a grassroots volunteer collaborative that has maintained daily vigils outside of Delaney Hall to monitor developments and support the visitors who come to see their loved ones in detention. “Eyes on ICE” has been a vanguard watchdog of ICE abuses in New Jersey. A wishlist for their mutual aid efforts can be found here.