County Fight Contested

Sussex County, DE — Poultry-Belt Street Arrests and the Hollowing of Georgetown

Sussex, DE FIPS 10005

Current status: Sussex County, Delaware's poultry-processing belt, became the state's ICE enforcement epicenter in 2025-2026. Statewide arrests rose from 220 (2024) to 687 (2025) and street arrests from 24 to 371; Sussex bore much of it via convenience-store stakeouts and traffic stops in Georgetown, Millsboro, Laurel, Seaford, and Ocean View. Georgetown — roughly half immigrant — visibly emptied as residents stayed home and kept kids from school. Laurel Police were found to have shared a list of Haitian residents' addresses with the FBI (Jan 2025). Mutual-aid group Sussex Help organized to support ~132 families (184 children). Detainees are transferred out of state to Pennsylvania facilities.

The Fight

Southern Delaware’s Delmarva poultry-processing economy sustains a large immigrant workforce, which made Sussex County (FIPS 10005) the focal point of Delaware’s 2025-2026 ICE enforcement surge. Statewide, ICE arrests rose from 220 in 2024 to 687 in 2025, and street arrests — stakeouts and traffic stops rather than jail pickups — jumped from 24 to 371. Sussex absorbed a large share. ICE officers stake out convenience stores, follow suspected vehicles, and conduct traffic stops; arrests occur roughly every couple of weeks, reported in Georgetown, Millsboro, Laurel, Seaford, and Ocean View.

Georgetown, the county seat where about half the residents are immigrants, has visibly hollowed out. Mayor Bill West reported far fewer immigrants in public and children kept home from school. Pastor Anastacio Matamoros (Iglesia de Dios de la Profecia, Georgetown) said he lost six church members to detention.

Local data-sharing: Laurel Police were found to have created a list of addresses of Haitian immigrants and shared it with the FBI in January 2025 — cited by advocates in a February 2025 letter to Gov. Meyer as proof that “formal and informal cooperation with ICE is a pervasive issue within Delaware,” despite the statewide 287(g) ban.

Mutual aid: Sussex Help organized to support roughly 132 affected families (184 children).

No DE detention: there are no ICE detention beds in Delaware. Arrestees are processed (often through the Dover sub-office) and transferred out of state to Pennsylvania facilities — Moshannon Valley and the PA county-jail/BOP network. (See dover-de-ice-ero-sub-office-staging and delaware-ice-detention-overview-2025-2026.)

Timeline

2025-01: Laurel Police (Sussex) share list of Haitian residents’ addresses with FBI
2025-02: 12+ DE organizations write Gov. Meyer/General Assembly citing “pervasive” ICE cooperation; Delmarva immigrants report staying home out of fear
2025 (year): DE ICE arrests reach 687 (vs. 220 in 2024); street arrests 371 (vs. 24)
2025-2026: Recurring street arrests across Georgetown, Millsboro, Laurel, Seaford, Ocean View; Sussex Help mobilizes for ~132 families

Why This Fight Matters

Sussex shows the on-the-ground cost of the transfer-origin model. Delaware’s 287(g) ban and detainer limits do not stop ICE street enforcement; they only push the detention out of state, so families in poultry-belt towns lose members to Pennsylvania facilities far from counsel. The Laurel Police data-sharing episode demonstrates how local agencies can still feed enforcement informally even under a statewide cooperation ban — a template for how ICE works around state-level firewalls. An industry economically dependent on immigrant labor is simultaneously the prime enforcement target.

Sources

This research is published at The RAMM — investigative reporting on the detention pipeline.

Edit Report issue County profile Add a tip about this fight