Why Should Delaware Care?
For more than a year, Delaware and federal officials have warred over the release of sensitive employment data from 15 state businesses. But two successive judicial rulings against the state will now require it to release that data.
More than a dozen businesses in Delaware will soon be scrutinized by federal immigration authorities over their purported hiring of undocumented workers, following a judicial order earlier this week.
A federal judge on Wednesday tossed out the Delaware Department of Labor’s appeal of a previous circuit court ruling that compelled the agency to turn over employment data from 15 unnamed businesses to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE originally sought that data — detailed wage records that include names, addresses, and Social Security numbers — in relation to federal investigations over alleged employment of undocumented workers.
The denied appeal comes a year after the federal government subpoenaed the Department of Labor seeking that sensitive employee data as part of President Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown.
But following two successive rulings against the state, officials say they will comply with the order.
In a press release following the ruling, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings lambasted the federal government’s request for the data, saying the “public has lost faith” in the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.
Still, she said now that the appeals court struck down its request, the state must release the data.
“The Court has spoken, and with no viable alternative before us, the state must honor its ruling — but this was a fight worth losing on our feet,” Jennings said in the release. “This was not just a question of what the law demands, but of what our conscience permits.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Gov. Matt Meyer also expressed his disappointment in the ruling in the press release.
In the year and a half since Trump’s second inauguration, Delaware has signed onto a number of lawsuits challenging actions the federal government has taken, including the stalling of offshore wind permits, cutting food stamps, and restricting gender-affirming care.
Meyer said those challenges would not stop in the coming years.
“We will not stop fighting against Trump administration actions that hurt Delawareans and our businesses,” Meyer said in the release.
Following Delaware’s passage of a statewide ban on local police cooperation agreements with ICE under the 287(g) program, the successful acquisition of labor data could open a new front in the Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdown in the First State.
Original court ruling
Prior to the state’s appeal, Delaware District Court Chief Judge Colm Connolly issued a blistering 27-page ruling in April compelling the state to turn over the subpoenaed employment data. That ruling picked apart the state Department of Labor’s arguments, which he said were political, not legal.
“This court is not the proper forum in which to air [the Delaware Department of Labor’s] generalized grievances about the conduct of government,” wrote Connolly, a former U.S. attorney who was appointed to the bench in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term. “It would be wholly inappropriate for me to consider this line of argument, and I decline to do so.”
Connolly’s ruling was largely expected, however, after a hearing earlier this month where the judge grilled the Delaware Department of Labor’s attorney Jennifer-Kate Aaronson, saying it was not her “best day” when she wrote the legal brief presenting her case.
During that court hearing on April 2, Connolly publicly dissected the regulations that Aaronson cited by projecting his computer tab onto a large screen at the head of the courtroom. He asked Aaronson where the law shows the state Department of Labor has “full discretion” to decide not to comply with a federal subpoena as he highlighted law text.
Aaronson was not able to point to a specific subsection of the regulations in response, but she maintained that disclosure of sensitive information to ICE has never been mandated by federal law.
How did we get here?
The case stems from a subpoena ICE issued to the Delaware Department of Labor in April 2025 seeking wage records for 15 Delaware businesses for the final two quarters of 2024, which the agency suspected of employing undocumented immigrants.
The subpoena, which originated from “hotline tips” that ICE received, sought employees’ names, addresses, wages and Social Security numbers from 15 Delaware businesses, according to court records. ICE’s subpoena efforts align with the Trump administration’s broader strategy of using federal and state agency data to bolster its promised immigration enforcement push.
Attorneys with the U.S. Attorney’s Office argued in court documents that wage records would help ICE further its focus on “worksite enforcement” and may help determine whether employees are using fake Social Security numbers or if employers are paying workers “under the table,” or using cash and without reporting it to the IRS, court records show.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Claudia Pare asked Connolly to seal the April subpoena when the case was first filed, arguing that ICE did not want to have the 15 business names become public and “prematurely alert” the targets of the agency’s worksite investigations.
Conversely, Deputy State Attorney Jennifer-Kate Aaronson filed a motion to unseal the subpoena in August. The 15 businesses suspected of hiring undocumented immigrants should have the opportunity to come to court and argue against their information being transmitted to ICE, she said during a previous court hearing.
Connolly initially declined to rule on those motions, although he said it remained a good decision to keep the subpoena under seal. If suspected businesses are made public and associated with potentially hiring undocumented employees, it could harm their reputation if they’re ultimately found to be innocent, he said.
DOL officials have received at least four subpoenas from ICE since February 2025, Aaronson said during an August court hearing. Department officials complied with one ICE subpoena that sought information about a single individual, Aaronson said.
According to other subpoenas obtained by the News Journal, ICE has also reportedly investigated the potential employment of undocumented workers at a Perdue plant in Seaford along with a fencing company and a northern Delaware restaurant.
Connolly noted in his ruling that prior to 2025, the Department of Labor routinely complied with subpoena requests from ICE and other federal agencies.
Jose Ignacio Castaneda Perez, Jacob Owens and Tim Carlin contributed to this report.
