Recognizing the 1960 University of Missouri Tigers Football Team
Floor Speech
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Mr. BOOKER. I am grateful for your recognition, Mr. President.
And I am going to try to get this order right. This is legislative session. I am going to give some remarks and then ask for a unanimous consent on a bill.
But I really want to, first, talk about something really challenging, tragic, that happened in the State of New Jersey. Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died. He is dead, and it is a death that did not have to be.
He was detained by ICE on June 18. He was sent to Delaney Hall in my home city, in Newark, NJ--it is a detention center--and he never came out alive.
Mr. President, 20 years--20 years--Edwin lived in the United States of America, 20 years of building a life here, 20 years of being connected to people and community, 20 years of making here in America a way forward. And yet, in less than 2 months of detention, the immigration system in our country led to his death.
And in Delaney Hall, he is the third person in 9 months to die; the 23rd person to die in ICE custody this year--not the first warning sign, not the second, this is the third death at the same facility and yet nothing changes.
Let me tell you exactly how Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died because his family deserves to have his name said on the Senate floor and his story told plainly.
Edwin had diabetes. He had high blood pressure. He needed his medication to survive, and Delaney Hall denied it to him. The day before he died, he told his mother that his arm had gone numb, half his face had gone numb. And understand, this is not a minor complaint. This was a man that was having a medical emergency, telling someone exactly what was happening to his body.
Did anyone come to his aid? No. Did he get his medication? No. Less than 24 hours, he was dead.
Doctors have warned us, attorneys have warned us in New Jersey, families have warned us, a chorus of people in our communities--not politicians, not political activists--doctors, lawyers have been warning us, detainees who walked out of that building, with their testimony and the facts and the evidence, people have said over and over again that this facility is dangerous. It is not well run, and within it is a pattern of disregard for human decency.
DHS has known that Delaney Hall is nothing short of a travesty since they reopened it over a year ago. So who runs what is, for so many, a house of horrors? Who runs the institution that I saw myself when I went there and met people? This is not for serious criminals. This is not a place for folks who have done serious crimes in our country. This is a detention facility for people, many of them have been in our country for decades, many of them have American spouses, American children.
And when I went there, I saw mothers who were recently postpartum who were not getting the support. I saw a woman who lost her child while in that detention facility, had a miscarriage there, did not get the support that she needed. Story after story, people told me what is going on there, the horrors that are going on there.
And who runs it? The U.S. Government does not run that center. It is a private group called the GEO Group, a private for-profit prison that has high-level Republican officials among its former employees. This group won a billion-dollar contract: no competition, no bidding, lots of campaign contributions, a phone call, a signature, and they have a billion dollars of taxpayer money.
New Jersey had to sue this company just to get health inspectors through the front door of a facility operating on American soil, funded by American taxpayers, and our State couldn't even do basic health inspections.
They did not get--they did not get--the permits to open that place. They did not have inspections before they did so. This is a private company taking a billion dollars of American taxpayer money. The less they provide sanitary services, the less they provide doctors and medical professionals, the more profit they make off of taxpayers. At whose expense? At the decency of American people and at the expense of the lives of the people who are there.
We give them hundreds of millions of dollars. And what are the reports out of Delaney Hall? Spoiled food, contaminated water, staff who retaliate against people brave enough to speak up about the conditions. A billion dollars in inadequate accountability. A billion dollars in inadequate healthcare. A billion dollars and a man whose face is numb, whose arm is numb, who is asking for help--does not get treatment, does not get healthcare.
So, here is the truth. It is clear for the GEO Group that part of their business model is this cruelty: cut medical staff, skimp on food, let the air-conditioning go out during the hottest days in New Jersey, let the roof leak, cram more bodies into less space. Every corner cut is a dollar of their profit. Every dollar of their profit is a dollar that the GEO Group's executives get to celebrate on their next earnings call.
GEO Group's stock has more than doubled since February of 2026--more than doubled. You know why? Well, follow the money.
Three million dollars from the GEO Group and its executives went into Donald Trump's campaign, into his PAC, into his inauguration. It is a pay-to-play that is worse than that. A pay-to-play and people get hurt. Lives are lost.
Over $2 billion in Federal contracts to run facilities like Delaney Hall in our country. This is not immigration policy. This is not what we stand for. No one loses their humanity because they are incarcerated. No one should lose their basic rights because they are behind bars.
Look, I am all for what this administration promised it would do. They said they would go after the ``worst of the worst.'' They said they would go after the people threatening our communities, menacing our families. We should all be supportive of that.
I believe we should have strong borders. I believe we should get criminals off of our streets. But the people actually locked up in that building in Delaney Hall? We know that more than 70 percent of the people have never been convicted of a single crime.
I met a high school student who had more of a Jersey accent than I do, who just wanted to walk with his class--rounded up. I have had the Catholic church reach out to me because of the sweeps they are doing around schools and churches. I have had family members beg me to get folks out in order to see their American children hit milestones like birthdays and graduations. I have been appealed to by everyone from priests to Republicans in our community. Many are following our laws.
But we in the U.S. Senate, Congress, hold the purse strings the administration depends on. We should be a check and a balance. We should demand that our taxpayer dollars are being used.
And when we see a body count climbing that is not normal, when we see more and more deaths, when we see a mother's son whose face went numb the night before, we should be asking for action and accountability.
Edwin Lopez-Cornejo's death was not a tragedy. A tragedy is something that no one could have prevented. This is a choice. Every single day the DHS keeps Delaney Hall open is another choice to let this happen, three times already. We should not make this choice.
Mr. President, I am now asking for a unanimous consent to pass the Delaney Hall Closure Act, which would close Delaney Hall within 90 days. They are out of excuses. We are out of time. How many more people should die?
So as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of my bill at the desk; that the bill be considered read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I appreciate the good-faith words of my colleague, and I will take it to heart that he is against unnecessary deaths and that the GEO Group should be investigated thoroughly and be held accountable. I do want to make followup points.
First of all, I live in North New Jersey. I used to run the police department as its mayor. There is nobody who feels more urgency for public safety in my city than I do. I hired many law enforcement officers and worked well with ICE, worked well with the FBI and with the DOJ--with all of the Federal law enforcement officers--in a coordinated effort to protect my community.
This idea that Democrats want to defund ICE is wrong. I actually believe we need law enforcement in our communities to keep us safe. But I want to make sure we do it in a way that comports with our values and our decency.
Let's be clear. There is no law enforcement agency in America that has more money than ICE has right now. As to this idea that the Democrats have done anything to defund it right now, ICE has more than the FBI, more than the ATF, and more than the Coast Guard combined. It is the most well-funded Agency there is. So the idea that they cannot provide for the basic needs of people who are in their facilities is a lie. This is not a money problem. ICE has all the money they need, and they are showing an inability to keep their inmates alive.
Now, I like my colleague's metaphor that if a bridge is broken, you close the bridge. I know this because, again, I was a mayor. If people are falling through holes on a bridge, we close the bridge. Do the inspections, but don't leave people in a hellscape where people continue to die in that facility. Keeping that open is irresponsible. ICE has enough money to transfer to other facilities the people who are a real threat. ICE has enough money to run around my State and overspend for real estate, as they have done in one of my towns. They are throwing cash around in a way that should offend Republicans and anybody who is fiscally prudent, but we are not holding the people accountable.
Yes, if something is broken, you stop using it. If people are dying because of a defect in a car, you don't use it. If people are falling through holes on a bridge, you close it. We have a responsibility to taxpayers' money, and we have shoveled this Agency more money than any law enforcement agency there is, and then we are not doing what is necessary to hold these people, like the GEO Group, accountable.
I will continue to stand for law enforcement. One of the reasons I got elected by my State is that we drove crime down in the city of Newark. Everybody saw it. Investment came back, and the population came back. I believe in creating safety in my community. This is not about the accusations that somehow, Democrats don't believe we should have strong law enforcement. If anybody believes in that, I know my record here in the Senate speaks to that.
How can we stand here and allow this from a facility in which multiple people have died in the most gruesome ways? How can we allow this from an organization that is supposed to be providing healthcare but is denying it? How can we allow this in accordance with our own values? Enough is enough.
Delaney Hall is a nightmare. I did not come to the floor to talk about closing facilities all over the country; I am talking about one facility with a record of people dying unnecessarily, with a record of people being denied medical care, with a record of people being denied healthy food--one facility that is failing. For this body to keep it open while waiting for something to change while more people are suffering and may die is irresponsible beyond compare.
I believe there is common ground on both sides of the aisle where we can achieve the highest levels of safety and also ensure that within our incarcerating facilities, people are treated with dignity. I have worked across the aisle with Senator Lindsey Graham, with Senator Chuck Grassley, and with Senator Mike Lee to improve conditions in the Bureau of Prisons. I hope that when it comes to ICE facilities and this private, for-profit company where people are dying that we can find some common ground to stop this nightmare from happening.
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