A second individual who broke out of a federal immigration detention facility in New Jersey amid a disturbance has been apprehended, authorities confirmed Sunday, while two others remain missing. Federal officials have categorized all four escapees as “public safety threats.”
The escape took place Friday at Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, a privately operated facility, after what’s been described as an incident involving up to 50 detainees. Officials say the disturbance created a window of opportunity for four men to flee custody.
Joan Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada, a Colombian national, was located and taken into custody over the weekend. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Castaneda-Lozada was initially detained in May in connection with burglary, theft, and conspiracy to commit burglary. His arrest comes just one day after Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez, originally from Honduras, was captured in Passaic on Saturday with assistance from ICE and the FBI. Sandoval-Lopez entered the country as a minor in 2019 and was arrested in early 2024 on an aggravated assault charge, followed later in the year by an arrest related to unlawful handgun possession, per DHS records.
The FBI has launched a manhunt for two individuals who remain at large after fleeing ICE custody at Delaney Hall in Newark — and is now putting up a $10,000 bounty for tips that lead to each fugitive’s capture.
Still unaccounted for are Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes of Honduras and Andres Pineda-Mongollon of Colombia. The pair fled alongside Castaneda-Lozada and Sandoval-Lopez during what was described as an “uprising” at the facility. New Jersey Senator Andy Kim, speaking at a press briefing, said the group managed to breach a mesh-reinforced drywall inside their unit, which led them to an outside wall and ultimately out into the facility’s parking area.
Despite the senator’s account, the Department of Homeland Security pushed back on descriptions of major disorder, stating there was no “widespread unrest” when the escape took place.
All four men reportedly entered the U.S. unlawfully between 2019 and 2023, according to DHS.
Bautista-Reyes was taken into custody this past May for multiple charges, including aggravated assault, issuing terroristic threats, attempted bodily harm, and unlawful possession of a weapon. Pineda-Mongollon, who came to the U.S. in 2023 on a tourist visa but failed to leave when it expired, was arrested twice in recent months — once in April for petit larceny and again in May on suspicion of residential burglary, conspiracy, and possession of burglary tools.
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.