Taylor: Office of New Americans a waste of money

Now, you might ask, what is this costing the Delaware taxpayer? The answer is $732,688 over three years, with a $30,000 one-time expense in 2027.”

Deirdre Taylor is a resident of Lewes and Newark.

The Delaware Office of New Americans was created in November 2025 and officially codified via Senate Bill 27, which passed June 30, 2026. It was signed into law by Matt Meyer on Sept. 30. The office has a director, Rony Baltazar-Lopez, and a deputy director, Midline Oware. The office is focused on four components:

• Integrating immigrants into the workforce through efforts like expanded English-as-a-second-language classes and digital financial literacy.
• Helping immigrants understand civic engagement in the United States and who is eligible to vote.
• Building infrastructure for language access in state agencies for those who don’t speak English.
• Working as a resource partner for organizations already serving the immigrant population.

Now, you might ask, what is this costing the Delaware taxpayer? The answer is $732,688 over three years, with a $30,000 one-time expense in 2027. You might say Delaware has a spending problem, not an income problem.

Eleven percent of Delaware’s residents (or 120,000 foreign-born individuals) make up its immigrant population.

Since Delaware is a sanctuary state, how many are legal immigrants and how many are illegal?

This question was posed to Rep. Frank Burns, D-Newark, at his monthly community meeting, and his answer was “I don’t know.” Another constituent said, “You should know.”

This same amount of money could go toward developing residency programs for rural family medicine in Kent and Sussex counties, since both counties are wastelands for medical professionals, and this would help all Delawareans, not just immigrants.

Also, Delaware being a sanctuary state, it will not cooperate with the federal government on looking at voter rolls to see if people are dead, if they no longer live in Delaware or if they are illegal. You can register to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Immigrants who move to America should immediately start to matriculate in the American way of life, culture, laws and language.

An example of this would be Angelo Cataldi. His parents emigrated legally from Italy. When Angie was growing up, no Italian was allowed to be spoken in the home because they were now Americans. So, Angie goes to Italy in World War II and was asked to interpret from Italian to English, and he could not do that. He felt bad, but his parents raised him as an American. Angie went on to be my junior high math teacher, a football coach, the owner of Angie’s Sub Shop in Newark and the president of the Newark Senior Center board. He was beloved. Angie matriculated and became American. This does not happen today. Immigrants remain loyal to their home countries. I feel this office is a waste of Delaware taxpayer money.

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.