The Tribal Organizations That Won’t Quit ICE |
The Tribal Organizations That Won’t Quit ICE
Public pressure campaigns have successfully forced Native corporations to divest from contract work with the controversial agency. But not always.
In December 2025, the Prairie Band of Potawatomi withdrew from a $30 million Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract and fired the executives who brokered it, after criticism from tribal members. In January, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin terminated over $6 million in ICE contracts and replaced its business group head. You’re probably noticing a pattern: In both of these cases, public pressure from tribal organizations forced the divestiture in President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation machine. But the trend hasn’t held everywhere. One notable instance is in Alaska, where Native corporations—a birthright to their shareholders—have continued pursuing ICE contracts despite the fact that the same kinds of forces are demanding that the Bering Straits Native Corporation, or BSNC, divest itself from contracts involving the controversial immigration agency.
It’s a surprising result given the obvious fault lines. “Native people know oppression,” wrote Levi Rickert, a Prairie Band of Potawatomi tribal citizen. “We were forcibly removed from our homelands, locked in Indian boarding schools, confined to reservations. We cannot—we should not—profit from the oppression of others.”
Why could tribal members force action at Prairie Band of Potawatomi and Oneida, while BSNC shareholders cannot?
The key difference lies in the legal structure of the targeted firms. Prairie Band of Potawatomi and Oneida are tribal governments, and their leaders answer to enrolled members, who can vote them out or demand accountability at council meetings. But Alaska Native Corporations, such as BSNC, are not tribal governments. They are for-profit corporations created by the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and their boards answer to fiduciary duty, not community values. Shareholders can sign petitions, but the board has no obligation to respond.
That structure is on full display at BSNC. Its subsidiary, Paragon Professional Services, holds $88 million in federal contracts with ICE, including for work at the East Montana Detention Center in El Paso and transportation of detained immigrants across Newark, New York, Baltimore, and Boston. More than 470 BSNC shareholders have signed a petition demanding the corporation divest from ICE work. The board has not formally responded.
“With tribal governments in the Lower 48, there’s a lot of attention to what economic development projects the Tribes are engaged in,” said Ann Tweedy, federal Indian law professor at the........