Alaska Native Corporations

A Quick Overview of News Profiles and Government Documents Related to Tribal Contracting for ICE Detention Facilities and Related Activities

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Prairie Band: “Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation has landed a $30 million contract to vet and design mega detention centers in the Trump administration’s push to stop illegal immigration.” [2025]

NANA Regional Corp.: “Through several presidential administrations, the company has turned itself into a large government contractor, with its biggest revenue generator run out of an office park in a suburb of Washington, DC. NANA’s largest contracts, worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, are with the Department of Defense. But over the past decade, one of its fastest-growing lines of government business is with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Schaeffer now says NANA is abandoning crucial values by taking an increasingly large role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive.” [2025]

Other ANCs: “Alaska Native corporations and their subsidiaries do much of the work — and reap the profits — of detaining and guarding U.S. immigrants, patrolling the nation’s borders and maintaining detention centers.” [2021]

Other ANCs: “Well, I combed through the government contracts database to find out what kind of work they did. So I looked at recent contracts for ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement). I found a NANA subsidiary that got a $22 million contract for detention management at Krome, an ICE detention  facility near Miami. The same subsidiary got a contract of $8 million for detention support services in upstate New York. There was an AHTNA subsidiary that got a recent ICE contract for $35 million to provide guard services at a facility in Texas. And another Alaska Native corporation subsidiary runs an ICE detention center in San Pedro, California. Also, I saw one for armed ground transport — $700,000, one of the smaller ones — and it went to a Bering Straits Native corporation subsidiary.” [2018]

Bering Straits Native Corp. “Located just below the Arctic Circle, tribal communities in the Bering Straits region are well-acquainted with frozen conditions. Yet among the 8,000 Indigenous Alaskan shareholders who own the Bering Straits Native Corporation, some are unaware that their company staffs an ICE immigrant detention facility in El Paso, Texas.” [2021]

Same: “Native corporations and other Alaska-based companies have taken on at least a billion dollars in contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent years, according to a review of available government contract data from 2012 through the present.” [2018]

Doyton Ltd and others: “Under current federal law and Department of Homeland Security regulations, Native American companies are favored recipients for immigrant detention contracts, and they reap large profits by assigning those contracts to non-Native American firms. One of the major Native-owned corporations that has received such contracts is Doyton Ltd., which holds the contract for operational, transportation and food services at the 800-bed El Paso Service Processing Center in El Paso, Texas.”

Same: “Doyon is one of several Native American corporations that are sealing major contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. Most are Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs), a collection of regional and village corporations created as part of the Alaska Claims Settlement Act of 1971. A few of these Native American corporations are contracting for various parts of ICE’s immigrant detention operations.” [2010]

Department of Homeland Security “Tribal Resources Guide“

dhs-tribal-resource-guide

NANA [2025]

GAO Report : “Increased Use of Alaska Native Corporations’ Special 8(a) Provisions Calls for Tailored Oversight” [2006]

gao-06-399

More NANA/Akima: “As the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has ramped up, officials are sending some migrants to a detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that’s run by the subsidiary of an Alaska Native corporation.” More on same issue.

Yet more NANA/Akima: “A corporate conglomerate now running the US government’s immigration detention center at the Guantánamo Bay naval base on a lucrative contract has been the subject of critical audits and a civil rights complaint over conditions at three other migrant lockups it has run within the US, documents reviewed by the Guardian show.”

Texas Federal Court Dismisses Title VII Suit against Alaska Regional Corp.

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in Balli v. Akima Global Services LLC (S.D. Tex.):

1 Complaint.pdfDownload
5 Motion to Dismiss.pdfDownload
8 Response.pdfDownload
9 Reply.pdfDownload
14 Magistrate Report.pdfDownload
15 Objections.pdfDownload
16 Response.pdfDownload
17 DCT Order.pdfDownload

Federal Circuit Affirms ICE Detention Contract Award to Company Owned by Alaska Native Corp.

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in Asset Protection & Security v. United States:

Federal Circuit Opinion

Interior Approves Craig Tribal Association’s Land-into-Trust Application

Sarah M Donnelly

Download(PDF): Press Release

Link: Notice in Federal Register

Excerpt:

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Lawrence S. Roberts, who leads the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, today announced the Department’s decision to place a 1.08-acre land parcel owned by the Craig Tribal Association, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in the City of Craig, Alaska, into federal Indian trust status. The decision is the first under the Department’s revised rule for taking tribal land into trust in Alaska.

RAND Report on Sole-Source 8(a) Native American Contracts

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

The description:

Some participants in the federal 8(a) Business Development Program, including Alaska Native Corporations, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian Organizations, face no limit on the value of sole-source contracts they can receive. Concerns over the rising number of these contracts led to requirements for justification and approval of contracts above $20 million. This raised other concerns regarding the effects of the new requirements on Native American-owned firms and contracting personnel. The new federal requirement may delay the award of these contracts but have little impact on the number of such contracts awarded.

Federal Polar Bear Critical Habitat Rule Vacated

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here are materials in Alaska Oil and Gas Assn. v. Salazar (D. Alaska):

Alaska Natives Motion for Summary J

Federal Consolidated Opposition Brief

Alaska Natives Reply

DCT Order Vacating Polar Bear Rule

From the opinion:

Plaintiffs contend that the Service proceeded with an unprecedented critical habitat designation despite the Service’s finding that such designation “will not result in any present or anticipated future conservation benefit to the polar bear species ” and is not “ ‘essential’ to the conservation of the species.” Plaintiffs further opine that: (1) such designation will “have significant adverse ramifications for the people who live and work on the North Slope, for Alaska’s oil and gas industry, and for the State of Alaska”; (2) the designation will “leave the species worse off because it is impairing the cooperative relationship that the … [Service] has sought to build with the Alaska Natives”; (3) the Service’s failure to exclude “native-owned lands and rural communities” will “disproportionately harm Alaska Natives and other North Slope Borough residents”; (4) the Service failed “to engage in meaningful consultation with [the State of Alaska and with] Alaska Natives early in the rulemaking process”; (5) the Service’s inclusion of “a one-mile no disturbance zone as part of the barrier island habitat unit of the designation … exceeds its authority under the ESA”; (6) “[t]he Service failed to adequately consider and include in the calculation of the total economic impacts of the designation the substantial indirect incremental economic impacts”; (7) “[t]he Service failed to provide Alaska with an adequate written justification as required by the ESA … for promulgating a … designation that conflicts with the comments submitted to the” Service; (8) the Service failed to address the area exclusion requests by Alaska “and failed to adequately consider whether the benefits of excluding those areas were outweighed by the benefits of including them”; (9) “[t]he Service improperly included areas that it concedes were not occupied by polar bears at the time of the designation”; and (10) “[t]he Service improperly included areas as critical habitat without determining that those areas contained the physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the polar bear.” Plaintiffs seek the invalidation of the Final Rule and request that the Court vacate and remand the Rule.

 

GAO: Monitoring and Oversight of Tribal 8(a) Firms Need Attention

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the report.

An excerpt:

Federal dollars obligated to tribal 8(a) firms grew from $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2005 to $5.5 billion in 2010, a greater percentage increase than non-tribal 8(a) obligations (160 percent versus 45 percent). Obligations to 8(a) firms owned by Alaska Native Corporations (ANC) represented the majority of tribal obligationsevery year during the period, rising to $4.7 billion in 2010. While tribal 8(a) firms comprised 6.2 percent of total 8(a) firms, their obligations accounted for almost a third of total 8(a) obligations in fiscal year 2010. Over the 6 years, the percentage of competitively awarded obligations to tribal 8(a) firms rose; however, solesource contracts remained the primary source of growth, representing at least 75 percent of all tribal 8(a) obligations in a given year.

Consistent with GAO’s 2006 review of ANC 8(a) contracting, contracting officials said that awarding contracts to tribal firms under the 8(a) program allows officials to award sole-source contracts for any value quickly, easily, and legally, and helps agencies meet their small business goals. However, the officials added that the program offices’ push for awarding follow-on contracts to the same firm also plays a role. GAO’s review of noncompetitive tribal 8(a) contracts shows the methods used to determine price reasonableness in a sole-source environment. In some cases, when agencies moved away from sole-source tribal 8(a) contracts toward competition, agency officials estimated savings as a result.

To ensure that 8(a) firms do not pass along the benefits of their contracts to their subcontractors, regulations limit the amount of work that can be performed by the subcontractors. Of the 87 contracts in GAO’s review, 71 had subcontractors. GAO found that required monitoring of limitations on subcontracting by procuring agencies was not routinely occurring. Similar to what GAO reported in 2006, some contracting officers do not understand that ensuring compliance is their responsibility under partnership agreements with SBA, and the regulations do not make this clear. Further, agency officials did not know how to monitor subcontracting limitations, particularly for indefinite-quantity contracts, as the data are not readily available. Not monitoring the limits on subcontracting can pose a major risk that an improper amount of work is being done by large firms.

In March 2011, SBA revised 8(a) regulations to clarify program rules, correct misinterpretations, and address program issues. Although a positive step, SBA will have difficulty enforcing new regulations pertaining to tribal 8(a) follow-on contracts and joint ventures given the information currently available. SBA told GAO it is currently in the process of developing the requirements for a new 8(a) tracking database. Further, the new regulations do not address some issues GAO has previously raised, such as ANC 8(a) firms under the same parent corporation generating a majority of revenue in the same line of business. SBA regulations do not allow a tribal organization to have more than one 8(a) subsidiary perform most of its work under the same primary business line. GAO also discusses practices that highlight how some tribal 8(a) firms operate, in effect, as large businesses because of their parent corporation’s backing and interconnectedness with sister subsidiaries. SBA has not reviewed these practices to determine whether they are congruent with the business development purpose of the 8(a) program.