This story was originally published by The Nome Nugget.

Diana Haecker
The Nome Nugget

Bering Straits Native Corporation faces criticism from shareholders regarding the corporation’s involvement in federal contracts to aid in the detention and removal of asylum seekers, illegal immigrants and migrants.

BSNC has in the past ten years secured lucrative contracts with the federal government, specifically the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to perform service related to migrant detention and removal.

Since the second Trump administration’s aggressive policies to round up and deport migrants and asylum seekers, the Native corporation’s participation in business contracts with DHS and ICE has come under renewed scrutiny by shareholders.

BSNC shareholders Charlene Aqpik Apok, Ayyu Qassataq and Jessica Saniguq Ullrich have publicly criticized that BSNC’s business strategy runs counter to the values that are supposed to guide the corporation. They penned an op-ed published in the Anchorage Daily News and drafted a petition that was circulated online and had garnered as of early December 102 signatures from shareholders and descendants, and 20 signatures from non-shareholders. They submitted the petition and the signatures to the BSNC board of directors prior to their December board meeting. The petitioners say additional signatures are being compiled with the intent to send an updated list, likely in January.

The petition

The petition calls on BSNC to divest from all business contracts associated in any way with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers immediately. It states, “As BSNC shareholders and descendants, we are deeply concerned about BSNC’s complicity in inflicting harm on Indigenous peoples through ICE detention facilities.”

The petition says that these detention centers “go against ancestral values of responsibility, human dignity, and respect. This line of business is an unjust investment on many levels, including adjacency to work that co-signs ICE methods including lack of due process for detainment, incarceration and rampant mistreatment of thousands of Indigenous relatives from Central and South America.”

The petition also reports that a BSNC descendant was recently stopped by ICE agents in Anchorage, Alaska and had he not produced ID, may have otherwise been hauled away and recounts Ullrich’s witnessing the detention of a worker who had been working legally in the country.

Ullrich witnessed the ICE arrest in front of her doorsteps last fall. She recounted the situation to the Nugget in an interview, saying she had hired contractors to work on countertops. As they pulled up to her house, she heard yelling outside. She saw the contractor van and two unmarked cars with police lights. “I had a feeling that it was ICE and started to go out and video it. And saw them bring one young man back in cuffs and put him in the unmarked car, and that’s when I asked, ‘Are you an ICE agent?’ And the man responded, ‘yes.’”

The man in handcuffs was detained and later deported.

This scene occurred the day before the BSNC annual shareholder meeting in Anchorage and Ullrich became aware of BSNC’s involvement in ICE contracts.

“These government sponsored actions are reminiscent of intergenerational traumas that we are still recovering from as a broader community,” states the petition. “Our Alaska Native community knows intimately the devastation that government-sanctioned separation of families and physical/mental violence causes to people, families and communities for generations. Boarding school survivors still live amongst us – and every single Native person in and from our region has been affected in some way by this violent assimilation era. To be complicit in inflicting these harms on other Indigenous people is unconscionable.”

Ullrich addressed the plenum at the annual shareholder meeting and although there was no response to her concerns, another comment elicited the response by BSNC CEO Dan Graham, who maintained that the business is conducted with utmost care and compassion.

Ayyu Qassataq ran for a seat on the BSNC board of directors and in her campaign highlighted the not very widely known issue of BSNC’s business with ICE. “After publishing our petition with its links to relevant news stories, we received many comments on social media and within the petition itself that made it clear that many shareholders, descendants and community members were horrified to learn that our corporation was involved with ICE in this way,” she said.

In her campaign video, she made clear that she would advocate for a change in direction.

“The way our Native corporations operate should be an extension of the values we carry as Native peoples. The work they do should amplify and reflect the relational power and knowledge that is embedded within our own cultures,” said Qassataq in an interview with the Nugget. She added that there’s a lack of transparency where individual board members stand on any given issue. “There are no opportunities made for people who are running for the board to express what they where they stand on different issues. So, there’s a complete lack of transparency at pretty much every level,” she said.

The business of migrant detention and removal

Several Native corporations in Alaska are engaged in ICE contracts, including NANA’s Akima division and BSNC through its subsidiaries. The corporations can secure government contracts thanks to a set-aside contract initiative administered through the Small Business Administration, the so-called 8(a) contracts, to help small businesses and what the federal government describes as “socially and economically disadvantaged” communities, including Alaska Native corporations.

An analysis of the publicly available contract documents reveals that BSNC over the last decade had a revenue of approximately $587 million from these ICE and Homeland security contracts. What is not clear is how much this revenue translates into profit.

In the latest BSNC Annual Report, Board President Cindy Massie reports that “2024 was a landmark year for our financial performance. BSNC achieved gross annual revenues of nearly $799 million, up 21 percent from the previous year.”

The report lists a total revenue of $122.7 million made in fiscal year 2024 from their Security Services division but does not spell out the money made from ICE or Homeland Security contracts. “These services typically include providing security personnel, surveillance, and related protective measures to ensure the safety and security of government facilities and operations,” reads the report.

The only reference to DHS and ICE work is found at BSNC’s job portal, where a plethora of jobs are advertised, including ICE related work as janitors at El Paso, detention officers at El Paso and Pecos, TX and armed transportation officers for DHS and ICE in Newark, NJ and Sykesville, MD.

On the website, BSNC also states its corporate values: “Our values arise from the culture of Our People. We honor our commitments. We empower one another. We respect diversity. We lead with responsibility.”

According to the federal procurement data system, BSNC subsidiaries Paragon Professional Services LLC, Global Precisions Systems LLC and Bering Straits Professional Service have or had several contracts with ICE and DHS.

Paragon Professional Services LLC branched out from providing environmental professional services to the migrant detention business connected to ICE. Paragon has and had contracts for detention, guard and transportation at El Paso Service Processing Center and to supply frozen meals; for transportation and guard services for the Baltimore, Maryland area of responsibility; for “transportation and guard services for the Enforcement and Removal Operations, NYC Area of Responsibility to achieve the ICE mission to safely transport detained aliens,” and to provide transportation and guard services at the Newark, NJ  detention facility.

Another BSNC subsidiary, Global Precisions Systems LLC, shows in the federal data base 230 so-called task orders – contracts and modified contracts – with ICE, stretching back to 2015 including facility support services at detention centers in El Centro, California, El Paso, Texas and Baltimore, Maryland for operation and maintenance of ICE facilities, armed guards and transportation services, and food for the El Paso detention center.

Bering Straits Professional Services LLC also bid on ICE related contracts. Last year, the subsidiary protested a decision by the government to award a contract for detention management, transportation and food services to Akima Infrastructure Protection LLC, a NANA subsidiary, and at the Krome Processing Center in Miami, Florida. Akima has managed the Krome facility for a decade and has a contract for Migrant Operations Center Services at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

According to a Government Accountability Office decision, the protest that Bering Straits Professional Services lodged, was denied. Among other points, the agency found that BSPS did not understand its role the process of screening migrants’ credible fear in their asylum requests.

According to an Amnesty International report, compiled in September 2025 after visits to the Krome detention facility and the Florida state-owned facility cruelly nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz”, detention conditions at both facilities amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

“The use of prolonged solitary confinement at Krome and the use of the ‘box’ at “Alligator Alcatraz” amount to torture or other ill-treatment,” reads the report.

A 2021 news storyin the El Paso Matters online newspaper detailed allegations of sexual assaults by guards, medical neglect, hunger strikes and letter writing campaigns that sought to change the dire conditions at the facility, for which the BSNC subsidiary Global Precision Systems holds ICE contracts.

According to the petition, BSNC board members toured the El Paso detention center.

BNSC response

Marleanna Hall, Director of External Affairs and Public Relations with BSNC responded to a list of detailed questions from the Nugget. “BSNC is a diversified corporation that operates across a broad range of industries, including construction, environmental services, professional services, logistics, and security support,” she wrote in an email response.

“Like many Alaska Native corporations, BSNC participates in federal contracting as a means of creating employment opportunities, generating revenue to support shareholder benefits, and strengthening the long-term sustainability of the corporation.

“BSNC does not comment on details of contracts that our companies perform, our communications with shareholders, customers, or internal communications.”

Asked if the leadership has responded to the shareholders petition and concerns, she wrote, “Responses to any inquiries from shareholders will be evaluated in due course to provide the best outcome for our shareholders, customers, partners, and community.”

Elsewhere, tribes divest

Other Native entities have made recent headlines divesting from business involvement associated with migrant detention or deportation.

According to Native News Online report, the Oneida Nation’s Business Committee, after learning of two federal contracts worth $6 million providing services to ICE, passed a resolution requiring all tribal entities to disengage from any contracts or agreements involving ICE. One contract involved the El Paso, TX detention center. The Oneida Nation said the decision was guided by the Nation’s “Good Mind Principles,” which emphasize ethical responsibility and alignment with community values.

Another tribe, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation even went as so far as to fire their senior executives over ICE contracts. According to a December 18, 2025 report in the Kansas Reflector, the chairman of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Tribal Council Joseph Rupnick said the Nation and its subsidiaries have fully separated from a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He drew parallels between immigrant detention and America’s history of forced removal of Native Americans. Some members of the tribe’s leadership were part of the company that contracted with ICE, KBP Services, and were subsequently fired for their involvement.

Back in Alaska, Jessica Saniguq Ullrich said that “Our ultimate goal and hope is that our corporation, is aligning with our ancestral values and engaging in businesses and investments that are ethical and moral according to our way of being in our way of life.”

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