Why Should Delaware Care?
A Sussex County police department maintained and shared a list of local Haitian immigrants’ addresses, who were believed to be undocumented, with the FBI. Since May, the FBI has reassigned nearly a third of its agents nationwide to focus on immigration enforcement.
In a seemingly unprecedented move in Delaware, a local police department in Sussex County created a list last year of where officers believe Haitian immigrants spend their time, and then sent it to federal officials.
During the early days of the Trump administration, the Laurel Police Department first compiled a dozen addresses of where its officers had encountered Haitian immigrants whom they “believe to be undocumented.” They then shared it with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to emails sent by the Laurel police chief in January 2025.
Police later added two more addresses to the list, according to the emails, which Spotlight Delaware obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, last month.
Asked about the revelation, immigrant advocates said they were shocked. Laurel’s mayor said he was “utterly disgusted” by his police department’s actions.
The town’s police chief said he is committed to helping other law enforcement agencies when they ask.
More than half of the 14 Laurel addresses on the list, where police had encountered “documented and undocumented” Haitian immigrants, were houses, according to the emails. Also on the list were several intersections.
Laurel Police Chief Robert Kracyla sent the address list to Justin Downen, according to the emails, which did not state Downen’s title. But a 2017 news release did identify him as an FBI special agent. Kracyla also confirmed that he sent the list to the FBI after the agency requested the information.
“We were asked to provide assistance, so we will always provide an agency assistance if they ask us,” Kracyla said in an interview with Spotlight Delaware.
The emails highlight what have become the increasingly opaque information sharing processes of immigrants’ personal data between federal agencies and local entities.
Nationwide, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has demanded immigrants’ personal information from an array of entities and government offices, including the Delaware Department of Labor, landlords, the Internal Revenue Service, and Medicaid data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
FBI motive remains unclear
Historically, neither local police departments nor the FBI have been primarily responsible for enforcing federal immigration laws.
In October, however, nearly half of the FBI agents working in the country’s major field offices were reassigned to help in immigration enforcement in order to support the Trump administration’s crackdown efforts, according to reporting from The Guardian.
Now, 23% of the roughly 13,000 total agents across all the FBI’s offices are working on immigration, according to the report. The shift toward immigration enforcement traces back to a series of FBI memos and meetings in May 2025.
Kracyla said it’s “not common at all” for the Laurel Police Department to compile and maintain a list of local immigrants’ addresses. He stated that it is the first time he can recall the department ever doing so.
“I just tried to provide them with the information they asked for,” he said.
Kracyla added that he doesn’t know how the FBI is using the list.
“I will let you know if we encounter any more immigrants.”
Laurel Police Sgt. Jared Haddock
After sending the initial list in January 2025, Kracyla followed up four months later in another email to the FBI to add two new addresses. Kracyla noted that one of the new addresses was occupied by a man who had a capias court warrant.
It remains unclear why the FBI wanted the full list of addresses. In an emailed statement sent Thursday, the FBI said it took no law enforcement action based on the list and did not share the information.
The address list was first compiled by Laurel Police Sgt. Jared Haddock before he emailed it to Kracyla.
“I will let you know if we encounter any more immigrants,” Haddock wrote in one email to his chief.
“Thank you, Jared, and pass on my thanks to everyone that assisted you with this project,” Kracyla replied.
Laurel mayor ‘utterly disgusted’
Laurel Mayor Carlos Oliveras said he was “disgusted” to learn of the actions of the town’s police department and their sharing of the list with the FBI.
In March, Oliveras was elected Laurel’s first new mayor in over 20 years after unseating incumbent John Shwed by seven votes.
“I am just so utterly disgusted in the way I feel about it personally that my police department is doing that,” Oliveras said.
In July, Gov. Matt Meyer outlawed official partnerships between ICE and local police departments.
The law bars the partnership program known as 287(g) agreements that essentially deputize local police officers to act as extensions of ICE, primarily through the use of local jails, where undocumented immigrants in custody can be processed into ICE custody for deportation, or through a “task force model,” where officers are trained to enforce immigration laws in their daily routines.
Delaware’s Haitian community has steadily grown for decades, stretching back to the 1980s. The population boomed in 2023 when then-President Joe Biden established humanitarian parole programs to encourage safe and orderly pathways to the U.S. from Haiti for up to 30,000 immigrants each month to live and work here for up to two years.
By, 2023, there were 5,609 households in Delaware where the primary language spoken was Haitian Creole, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Many of those Haitian families settled in Seaford, Laurel, Camden and Dover.
Over the past year, many within the Haitian community in Delaware have lived in fear of deportation, job loss and the possibility of their temporary protected status being revoked. In response, some have fled to Canada in search of better living conditions.
Helen Salita, campaign manager with the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware, described the revelation of the Laurel Police’s list as “incredibly troubling,” warning that it may deteriorate relations between the town’s police and immigrant communities.
“It is concerning to see that instead of Laurel PD focusing on local issues, they are, instead, tracking the local immigrant community,” Salita said.
Salita called on Gov. Matt Meyer for “immediate and decisive action” to end all cooperation with ICE.
As questions around information sharing and official partnerships arise, legislators have introduced a bill to try to prevent immigrants’ sensitive information from being handed over.
In December, Rep. Sean Lynn (D-Dover) introduced legislation that would bar the Delaware departments of finance and labor from disclosing information about the citizenship or immigration status of a person in any tax return, tax document and database within both departments.
To do so, Department employees would need to get approval from the Delaware Attorney General or a court order associated with a felony criminal investigation. House Bill 238 would also make the disclosure of the information, without prior approval or court order, a misdemeanor.
The legislation is awaiting consideration in the House Revenue & Finance committee.