Laravel API secure way to get list of users

I need to get a list of users with email through API access in Laravel and I'm trying to figure out the best way to allow access to that particular route for only the 'staff' role set using the silber/bouncer package. I've considered OAuth2 using Laravel Passport but it seems too much extra work for a select2 field in the admin section, however exposing the entire list of users through an unguarded route is not an acceptable outcome. Is there no light-weight alternative to OAuth2?

via Chebli Mohamed