A federal judge in Wilmington ordered Delaware’s Department of Labor to turn over confidential wage reports and employee records to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ruling that the state had no legal ground to defy a lawful federal subpoena targeting businesses suspected of hiring illegal immigrants.
U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly found the ICE subpoena lawful, relevant to a legitimate investigation, and not overly burdensome. He dismissed Delaware’s resistance in blunt terms, writing that the state’s objections amounted to politics, not law.
The ruling marks a clear defeat for officials in former President Joe Biden’s home state, who ignored multiple ICE subpoenas earlier this year and then refused to comply even after federal prosecutors sent a follow-up warning. When Delaware still wouldn’t hand over the data, the federal government sued to enforce compliance, and won, as Fox News Digital reported.
The subpoena at the center of the case seeks records from 15 businesses, specifically, 30 records covering two quarters of wage data. The information includes employees’ names, Social Security numbers, and wages reported to the state through its unemployment insurance system.
Federal investigators said the records would help them identify potentially fraudulent Social Security numbers, compare reported employees to workers actually observed on-site, and detect off-the-books labor. In other words, the data is a basic tool for determining whether businesses are employing people who are not legally authorized to work in the United States.
Delaware’s Department of Labor argued it could refuse the request. State officials warned that compliance would harm worker reporting and damage state programs, a claim Judge Connolly dismissed as unsupported. The state also raised broader grievances about the federal government’s immigration enforcement priorities, an argument the judge rejected outright.
Connolly wrote in his ruling:
“This is a political argument; not a legal one.”
He went further, making clear the courtroom was not the place for Delaware’s policy complaints. As he put it:
“This Court is not the proper ‘forum in which to air [DDOL’s] generalized grievances about the conduct of government.’ It would be wholly inappropriate for me to consider this line of argument, and I decline to do so.”
The timeline tells its own story. ICE issued subpoenas to Delaware early in 2025. The state ignored them. Federal prosecutors followed up with a warning. Delaware still did not respond. Only after the federal government filed suit did the matter land before Judge Connolly, who sided with the feds on every point that mattered.
The judge also took aim at Delaware’s suggestion that employers would stop reporting wages to the state if they knew the data might be shared with immigration authorities. Connolly wrote that he was “neither willing nor able to adopt DDOL’s cynical view of the State’s employers.” The implication was plain: if a business is obeying the law, it has nothing to fear from a federal investigation.
That logic cuts to the heart of the dispute. States that resist ICE subpoenas are not protecting law-abiding employers. They are shielding businesses that may be breaking federal hiring laws, and, in doing so, they are making it harder to hold anyone accountable. The pattern is familiar: state officials invoke worker protection while the real beneficiaries are employers who exploit cheap, illegal labor. It is a dynamic Mississippi recently moved to address by passing legislation making illegal immigration a state crime.
Benjamin Wallace, Delaware’s newly appointed U.S. Attorney, praised the decision. He told the Delaware News Journal:
“We are gratified that the court recognized the simple truth at the core of this case: federal law applies to everyone, whether they are a state or private entity, and whether they agree or disagree with the federal government’s policy priorities.”
Wallace’s statement frames the case in terms that should be obvious but apparently are not to every state official: federal law is not optional. A state labor department does not get to decide which federal investigations deserve cooperation and which ones it finds politically inconvenient.
The ruling fits a broader pattern of federal courts drawing hard lines when states try to obstruct lawful federal authority. In recent months, judges across the country have weighed in on clashes between the executive branch and officials who disagree with enforcement priorities. Some rulings have gone against the administration, but in this case the law was squarely on the federal government’s side, and the judge said so without hesitation.
State officials have not said whether they plan to appeal. Fox News Digital reported reaching out to the Delaware Department of Labor, the Delaware Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, and DHS and ICE for comment. No responses were noted.
The silence is worth noting. Delaware fought this subpoena hard enough to force a federal lawsuit. Now that a judge has ruled against the state on every argument it raised, the officials who led the resistance have gone quiet. Whether that silence signals acceptance or a plan to drag the fight into an appeals court remains to be seen.
The broader question is how many other states are sitting on similar subpoenas. ICE’s investigation targeted just 15 businesses and sought 30 records. This was not a sweeping dragnet. It was a narrowly tailored request, and Delaware still refused. If a state will defy a subpoena this modest, it raises the question of what it would take for officials to cooperate voluntarily with any federal immigration enforcement effort.
The judiciary’s role in these disputes has become increasingly consequential. Federal judges have found themselves refereeing conflicts between state governments and federal agencies on everything from immigration enforcement to grand jury procedures. In one recent case, a federal judge rewrote grand jury notice rules after the DOJ failed to indict six Democrats, a reminder that courts are not shy about asserting authority when they believe the law demands it.
Meanwhile, the political dimensions of the federal judiciary’s immigration-related decisions continue to generate friction. Appellate courts have intervened in multiple high-profile cases this year, including one in which the D.C. Circuit rebuked a lower court judge over a contempt probe tied to deportation flights. The Delaware ruling adds another data point: when a state’s objections are political rather than legal, federal courts will say so.
Delaware’s resistance did not protect workers. It protected employers suspected of breaking the law. It shielded a system in which illegal immigrants may be exploited for cheap labor while legal workers and taxpayers bear the costs. And it wasted court resources on a fight the state was never going to win on the merits.
Judge Connolly saw through the arguments. He called them what they were, political, not legal, and ordered the state to comply. The data covers 15 businesses and two quarters of wage records. It is not a fishing expedition. It is a targeted investigation into whether employers are hiring people they are not legally permitted to hire, using Social Security numbers that may not belong to them.
When a state government goes to court to keep that information hidden from federal investigators, the question every taxpayer should ask is simple: whose side are they on?
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