Delaware has no dedicated ICE detention facility and no ICE detention contract. It is a transfer-origin state: people arrested by ICE in Delaware are processed through the ICE ERO Dover sub-office (under the Philadelphia Field Office’s Area of Responsibility) and transferred out of state, overwhelmingly into the Pennsylvania detention network — most notably the GEO Group’s Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County, PA (1,876 beds, the largest detention center in the Northeast), plus contracted county jails (Pike, Clinton, Cambria, Franklin) and BOP sites (FDC Philadelphia, FCI Lewisburg). Some Delmarva detainees also move into Maryland/Virginia facilities. The detention footprint is in PA; the enforcement and the political fight stay in DE.

Delaware has built one of the most active mid-Atlantic legal firewalls against ICE cooperation: it banned 287(g) agreements statewide (HB 182, July 2025), limits detainers, and in 2026 is advancing a private-detention funding bar (HB 151) and a courthouse-arrest ban. At the same time it is the target of a parallel federal strategy — a court order compelling its Department of Labor to hand wage records to ICE (now on appeal), pressure to lease Wilmington Airport hangar space to an ICE deportation-flight contractor, and demands for DMV data. See county-fight: delaware-statewide-287g-ban-detention-fight.

ICE Field Office / Holding

• ICE ERO Dover sub-office — 210 Beiser Boulevard, Dover, DE 19904 (Kent County, FIPS 10001). Phone (302) 730-9315; check-in/appointment hours Mon-Thu 8-11 a.m. This is a sub-office of the ICE ERO Philadelphia Field Office, whose Area of Responsibility covers Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. It is a check-in / processing / short-hold point, not a detention center — there are no detention beds in Delaware.
• No dedicated detention center anywhere in Delaware. Delaware DOC facilities are not ICE-contracted hold sites; the state’s 287(g) ban and detainer limits keep local jails out of sustained-hold use. Treat any “Delaware ICE detention facility” claim as unverified — none was found as of May 2026. (See facility entry: dover-de-ice-ero-sub-office-staging.)

Out-of-State Transfer Pipeline (the detention happens in PA)

DE detainees are funneled into the Philadelphia Field Office detention network in Pennsylvania:

• Moshannon Valley Processing Center (Clearfield County, PA) — GEO Group, 1,876 beds, largest in the Northeast; paid via a Centre County pass-through contract. The primary regional destination.
• Contracted county jails: Pike, Clinton, Cambria, and Franklin counties hold ICE detainees under contract; Clinton, Erie, Franklin, and Pike collectively billed ICE more than $21M for detention across 2024-2025 (Pike alone ~$16M).
• BOP facilities: ICE set up contracts in 2026 to hold immigrants at the Federal Detention Center, Philadelphia and FCI Lewisburg, PA.
• Delmarva drift: detainees arrested in southern (Sussex) Delaware and the Eastern Shore are also moved into Maryland/Virginia facilities; transfers are frequent and quick, separating detainees from family and counsel.
• Scale: more than 12,000 people were placed in detention across PA, NJ, and DE in the nine months after January 2025 — nearly triple the prior nine months under Biden.

Enforcement Surge (the data)

• Statewide arrests: Delaware ICE arrests rose from 220 in 2024 to 687 in 2025. Street arrests (the most coercive kind — stakeouts and traffic stops, not jail-pickups) jumped from 24 in 2024 to 371 in 2025.
• Tactics: in Sussex County, ICE officers stake out convenience stores, follow suspected vehicles, and conduct traffic stops, arrests occurring roughly every couple of weeks.

Sussex County / Poultry Belt — the enforcement epicenter

Southern Delaware’s poultry-processing economy (Delmarva broiler industry) drives a large immigrant workforce, making Sussex County (FIPS 10005) the state’s enforcement epicenter:

• Georgetown — county seat, ~half the residents immigrants — has seen a visible community withdrawal; Mayor Bill West reported far fewer immigrants out in public and kids kept home from school. Pastor Anastacio Matamoros (Iglesia de Dios de la Profecia, Georgetown) reported losing six church members to detention.
• Other towns hit: Millsboro, Laurel, Seaford, Ocean View.
• Local data-sharing controversy: Laurel Police (Sussex) created a list of addresses of Haitian immigrants and shared it with the FBI in January 2025 — cited by advocates as evidence of “informal cooperation with ICE.”
• Mutual aid: Sussex Help organized to support ~132 affected families (184 children).
• No confirmed large-scale workplace poultry-plant raid was found; the pattern is street arrests and traffic stops, not plant sweeps — but poultry-belt towns are clearly targeted.

Federal Counter-Fronts Against Delaware’s Firewall

• Labor data subpoena: an HSI subpoena (April 2025) sought confidential wage/employee records (names, SSNs, earnings) for 15 DE businesses. U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly ordered DE’s Dept. of Labor to comply (April 13, 2026); Gov. Meyer and AG Jennings announced an appeal (April 21, 2026). Detailed in the county-fight entry.
• Daedalus / Wilmington Airport: the Delaware River and Bay Authority (DRBA) is weighing a lease of Wilmington Airport hangar space to Daedalus Aviation, a contractor that earned ~$140M selling planes to DHS for ICE deportations (affiliated firm holds a ~$1B deportation-support contract). All 15 DE Senate Democrats signed a letter opposing it; the Delaware Stop Avelo Coalition and DSA pressed Gov. Meyer (and NJ Gov. Sherrill) to veto. DRBA claimed federal law forces approval; key DRBA meeting was Feb 18, 2026. Meyer floated conditional approval only for VIP transports, not deportation flights.
• DMV data: Delaware lawmakers urged Gov. Meyer to block ICE access to DMV records, fearing the database becomes another enforcement-targeting tool.

Why This Matters

Delaware is a clean transfer-origin case: a small, sanctuary-leaning state with no detention beds of its own pushes the detention footprint entirely into Pennsylvania (Moshannon Valley and the PA county-jail/BOP network), while the enforcement surge and the legal fight stay home. It is also the mid-Atlantic test bed for the federal government’s parallel-attack playbook — when a state bans 287(g) and limits detainers, the administration pivots to piercing state labor and DMV databases through the courts and leaning on quasi-state authorities (an airport authority) to host deportation-flight infrastructure. The poultry-belt towns of Sussex County show the human cost: an industry-dependent immigrant workforce subjected to street-level arrests and rapid out-of-state transfer.

Sources

• WHYY: ICE agreements in Philly, suburbs, NJ and Delaware
• ICE: Dover, DE sub-office (Philadelphia Field Office)
• ICE: Philadelphia Field Office
• ICE: Moshannon Valley Processing Center
• Spotlight PA: PA jails earn millions detaining immigrants for ICE (April 2026)
• Philadelphia Inquirer: First members of Congress access Moshannon Valley (May 28, 2026)
• Cape Gazette: ICE arrests leave family tragedies in Sussex County
• Cape Gazette: ICE active in state, Sussex County
• CNS Maryland: Fearing ICE raids, Delmarva immigrants stay home (Feb 2025)
• WHYY: Delaware, NJ governors pressured against ICE contractor Daedalus lease
• CoastTV: Lawmakers urge Meyer to block ICE access to Delaware DMV data
• State of Delaware: DE appeals court order to provide employer data to ICE (April 21, 2026)
• Star Democrat: After ICE arrests, detainees are moved often (Delmarva)