Northwest Alaska's NANA Regional Corporation is a major player in government contracts for immigration detention facilities.
As the Trump administration's immigration crackdown continues, allegations of human rights abuses have led calls from some NANA shareholders to get out of the immigrant detention business.
As an Alaska Native corporation, NANA is able to pursue the contracts as a small or disadvantaged business under what's known as the 8(a) program.
Bloomberg Businessweek, working with Kotzebue radio station KOTZ, found NANA held nearly 58.1% of ICE's 8(a) contracts over the past decade, a period during which it raked in about $1.2 billion.
As some NANA shareholders told Bloomberg reporter Polly Mosendz and KOTZ reporter Desiree Hagen, that financial payoff is not worth the human toll.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Desiree Hagen: Between the two of us, we interviewed nearly two dozen shareholders, and one of the most common things that I heard was that this goes against our Iñupiaq values, Iñupiat illitqusait, which is like 17 values that range from, you know, respect for others, cooperation, respect for elders.
Another thing that we heard was that maybe NANA was not communicating this. A few shareholders said, "This was the first time we've heard about it," or, "We're just learning about this," which was kind of calling into question the corporate transparency.
Polly Mosendz: Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. I think there were a lot of people who sort of asked us, "Well, where can I find this in the shareholder report? Where has this been disclosed by the company?" And pretty consistently, we would have to say that it's just not really been a matter of profound disclosure. If you look at the annual report, you certainly wouldn't get the impression that this is a detention center giant.
Casey Grove: There's a chart in the story that shows that NANA has a huge proportion of these type of contracts, compared to other Alaska Native corporations. Is there something about how 8(a) contracting works that lends itself to getting ICE contracts?
PM: Just to kind of give a size and scope, the value of NANA's ICE contracts this year is approaching $300 million, which is an increase of about $100 million over last year. So that is substantial for any company. And one thing to keep in mind is that regardless of how big NANA gets, it still qualifies for the set-aside contracts under 8(a), and that is unique. You know, other small businesses, disadvantaged businesses, can kind of scale out of being 8(a) contractors. That is not the case with Alaska Native corps, and that is unique. So even a multi-billion-dollar company like we're talking about here is still going to qualify for those set asides. And that is, you know, that can be really lucrative, that can be a really serious advantage.
DH: So it was like NANA is a medium-sized fish in a smaller bowl, as opposed to being in a bowl full of large fishes.
CG: Well, I mean, for that money, then, what are NANA shareholders getting out of it?
PM: Yeah, let's talk about the dividend a little bit. So the NANA dividend is paid twice a year. There was one that was about $8 (per share). There's one coming up, it's gonna be about $20 per share. And while NANA doesn't disclose the median quantity of shares that a shareholder might have, an average that we were able to deduce based on the quantity of shares outstanding, to the approximation of how many shareholders there are, would be about 117.
So for this year, you're looking at about $3,300 a person. And one shareholder who we interviewed, David Leslie, basically made the argument that he feels like the company is complicit in a human rights violation, and it's not quite enough money per dividend to pay his rent with it. So he was frustrated with the dividend.
On the flip side, there's other shareholders who we spoke with who said, you know, the dividend is helpful to them, and that they also wanted to take into account the other elements of support that NANA was providing, like, for example, fuel subsidies. That's something that came up a lot.
So I think that the dividend can be controversial. Some people think that they are being paid a fair amount, and some people feel like, no, it isn't enough. So I don't think that there is agreement. And frankly, I think any 15,000 people who you poll on such a matter would probably have natural disagreements on whether they thought that the dividend was fair.
DH: I would say that NANA does do a lot for the region. Just in the course of reporting, I'm keeping track of how much money is going to, let's say, you know, this renewable energy project, which is something that we just heard. You know, oh, there's another $5 million that Nana is contributing. So there are contributions, but echoing what Polly said, we heard a lot of different things about how people felt about their dividend and how NANA was contributing to the communities.
CG: Well, speaking of some of the things that shareholders told you that they considered to be human rights abuses and stories that we've heard coming out of these detention facilities, what did NANA say in response to these, either these allegations or questions from their own shareholders?
PM: While NANA did not respond to us in the course of reporting this story, they did send a letter earlier this summer specifically to a shareholder who had asked them about these contracts, and in that letter, they had denied some of the media reports and they felt that these contracts did uphold their community's values.
They had also made a reference to site visits. We don't know what those site visits might have consisted of, where they might have gone, or who went, or what they were allowed to see, but that was what they had said sort of privately, and we have not heard from the company since the article was publicized.
CG: Where does this go from here? The story leaves off sounding like NANA is not going to be shying away from these contracts in the future.
PM: Yeah, I think we genuinely can't know. What we do know is that the federal government has clearly made this a mission. The president campaigned on this. This is a notable campaign promise that he made. It was a landmark part of his first administration, and it seems like it's an even more committed to part of this administration the second go around.
So I think that what we do know is that the federal government is extremely focused on this, and historically, they do use contractors to hold people in these facilities. And, you know, with $45 billion released for this administration's deportation, detention plan broadly, I think we know that this is work that someone is going to do, whether NANA is going to do it, or another Alaska Native corp, we don't know. We can't know, but there is going to be a lot of money when the government eventually reopens with which to do this work.
DH: You know, I have had some shareholders that have reached out to me personally since this article came out, and they are considering how to potentially change some of the bylaws so this type of work could be prohibited. There's boots on the ground. There's been quite a reaction to the article.
