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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: Kotsubue is a community of about three thousand people in

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Speaker 2: northwest Alaska. It sits roughly thirty miles north of the

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Speaker 2: Arctic Circle.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty remote. There's no roads that connect to the

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Speaker 1: community or any of the communities in the region. We

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Speaker 1: primarily travel by plane, boat, or in the wintertime, we

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Speaker 1: use snowmobiles to kind of travel along the ice.

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Speaker 2: Desiree Hagen lives there. She's the news director of the

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Speaker 2: local public radio station KOTZ In Kotsubu.

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Speaker 1: I'm the only news person. I'm the only reporter, and

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Speaker 1: it's a region the size of Indiana.

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Speaker 2: Most of Kottsubu's residents are in newpiac, a group indigenous

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Speaker 2: to northwestern Alaska. Their families have been there for generations.

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Speaker 2: It's a community big on nature.

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Speaker 1: We have a major dog race. It's like the last

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Speaker 1: dog race of the season, dog machine race. It's in April.

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Speaker 1: I've always wanted to do it. I've always thought like,

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Speaker 1: maybe one day I.

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Speaker 3: Could do this race.

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Speaker 2: Many residents are also shareholders or employees of NANA. It's

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Speaker 2: a for profit corporation established by Congress in the nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventies as a settlement over land claims by indigenous tribes

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Speaker 2: and to prop up Alaska's native economies. Twice a year,

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Speaker 2: Nana shareholders get a dividend payout of the company's profits.

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Speaker 1: Everybody looks forward to Nana dividends to dividend time.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty five, the average payout for the year

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Speaker 2: per shareholder will be about three three hundred dollars.

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Speaker 1: They'll hold off doing things until they get their dividend,

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Speaker 1: Like once I get my dividend, I'm going to get

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Speaker 1: a new four wheeler, or you know, hey, can I

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Speaker 1: borrow some money. I'll pay you back when dividends get here.

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Speaker 2: Historically that money came from Nana work in local industries

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Speaker 2: like oil and mining. In fact, Nana leases the mining

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Speaker 2: rights to one of the largest lead and zinc mines

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Speaker 2: in the world. But in recent years, the overwhelming majority

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Speaker 2: of Nana's revenue, the money that's fueling those dividend payments,

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Speaker 2: it's come from a subsidiary of the company, and a

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Speaker 2: chunk of that money comes from a corner of Nana's

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Speaker 2: business that some shareholders say they weren't aware of, ice

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Speaker 2: detention facilities.

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Speaker 4: There were folks who were surprised to learn that the

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Speaker 4: company was involved in this work.

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Speaker 2: Potly Mason's is an investigative reporter at Bloomberg. She visited

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Speaker 2: Kotzebu to report with Desiree on Nana's growing relationship with ICE,

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Speaker 2: and Poty says that as news of those government contracts

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Speaker 2: has come to light, it's caused deep concern among some

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Speaker 2: in the community.

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Speaker 4: The shareholders who I spoke with, they all sort of

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Speaker 4: had the same refrain that they were, you know, they

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Speaker 4: totally understood that these might be profitable contracts, but they

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Speaker 4: were concerned that, however profitable they might be, that they

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Speaker 4: did not uphold the values of their community, and that

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Speaker 4: they were zerned about human rights conditions and how people

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Speaker 4: might be treated in these facilities.

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Speaker 2: I'm David Gera, and this is the Big Take from

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Today. On the show, a collaboration between Bloomberg News,

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Speaker 2: Kotz and Alaska Public Media, How an Alaska Native Corporation

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Speaker 2: became an ICE detention giant, and why some of its

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Speaker 2: shareholders are now speaking out. Alaska Native Corporations were established

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Speaker 2: through the Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act in nineteen seventy one.

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Speaker 2: In exchange for dropping their claims to vast areas of

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Speaker 2: the state, Alaska natives received roughly forty five million acres

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Speaker 2: of land and nearly one billion dollars in a settlement payment.

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Speaker 2: The act helped clear the way for the trans Alaska

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Speaker 2: Pipeline system and came after a push from Alaska Native

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Speaker 2: leaders to create an alternative to the reservation system of

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Speaker 2: the lower forty eight states. So divided Alaska into twelve

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Speaker 2: regions and established a private, for profit regional corporation for

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Speaker 2: each of them. NANA is one of those corporations. The

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Speaker 2: regional corporations got mineral and oil rights for those lands,

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Speaker 2: and nana's over fifteen thousand shareholders are eligible for a

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Speaker 2: cut of those profits. Here's Kotz's Desiree Hagen.

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Speaker 1: One of the reasons that this was created was some

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Speaker 1: of the people that were sort of the architects of

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Speaker 1: this system. They wanted people to be independent so that

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Speaker 1: they could do activities like subsistence hunting and fishing and

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Speaker 1: would have a sort of passive income.

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Speaker 2: Desiree and Bloomberg's Polymoscins have been reporting on NANA, the

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Speaker 2: Alaska Native corporation that got spun up in Consubu and

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Speaker 2: its surrounding area after President Nixon signed that legislation into law.

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Speaker 2: Polly says, at first, NANA invested in industries that were

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Speaker 2: close to home in.

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Speaker 4: Their business, sort of in the seventies and early eighties,

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Speaker 4: a lot of what they're focused on is natural resources.

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Speaker 4: They're focused on oil, on mining, on supporting the Trans

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Speaker 4: Alaska pipeline system, and they start to struggle a little bit.

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Speaker 4: They're having a little bit of trouble, and Congress sees

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Speaker 4: a way out, they see a solution, and they decide

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Speaker 4: to extend what's called the eight A Program.

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Speaker 2: The eight A Program is essentially a carve out. It's

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Speaker 2: meant to help socially and economically disadvantaged groups compete for

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Speaker 2: government contracts, and it requires the federal government to reserve

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Speaker 2: a certain percentage of contracts to bidders from those backgrounds.

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Speaker 4: That basically means that instead of competing in this huge, huge,

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Speaker 4: huwed wide world of government contracting, you're competing in a

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Speaker 4: different program that's a little bit smaller and geared towards

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Speaker 4: these smaller, perhaps disadvantage groups.

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Speaker 2: NANA has been doing work for the federal government as

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Speaker 2: far back as nineteen ninety five when it got a

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Speaker 2: contract to provide services to the US Military Academy at

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Speaker 2: West Point.

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Speaker 4: They're doing variety of work in all corners of the

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Speaker 4: federal government. There is technical work, there's tech support, there's

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Speaker 4: DoD contracting. You know, it's not like they are just

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Speaker 4: in one teeny tiny sliver of the federal government. There

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Speaker 4: are no shortage of contracts that they are going to

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Speaker 4: take on.

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Speaker 2: And in twenty twelve, Nana organized all of its federal

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Speaker 2: contracting under one subsidiary called Akama. The next year, Akama

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Speaker 2: hired a former assistant ICE Field Office director. His LinkedIn

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Speaker 2: page lists his role at the company that year as

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Speaker 2: director of Operations. By twenty fourteen, Okama won its first

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Speaker 2: contract to run an ice detention facility, the Chrome North

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Speaker 2: Service Processing Center in Miami.

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Speaker 4: You might have heard of Chrome more recently this year

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Speaker 4: because it was one of the centers that was over

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Speaker 4: capacity in the early Trump administration earlier this year. That

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Speaker 4: is their first foray into ice work. From there, they

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Speaker 4: take on the Batavia Detention Center, which is in New

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Speaker 4: York State, And now they've got about a half dozen

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Speaker 4: places that they're operating.

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Speaker 2: Among those half dozen other places is Guantanamo Bay. Through

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Speaker 2: its subsidiary NANA, runs the Trump administration's migrant detention facility there.

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Speaker 4: That's a really big one. I think that that is

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Speaker 4: a facility that has not actually held a ton of people,

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Speaker 4: but gotten a lot of attention because of its location.

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Speaker 2: What do we know broadly speaking about the conditions inside

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Speaker 2: these ICE facilities that are run by Akama.

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Speaker 4: So I'll start off by speaking about Chrome. Chrome during

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Speaker 4: the second Trump administration in its early days, you know,

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Speaker 4: it was being cited for just overflow issues. And you

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Speaker 4: know the other thing that we start hearing about Chrome

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Speaker 4: that people feel unsafe there, they feel overcrowded.

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Speaker 2: Since the start of the year, four men in ICE

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Speaker 2: custody have died after being detained at Chrome. At another

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Speaker 2: Akama managed detention center near Buffalo, New York, government inspectors

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Speaker 2: repeatedly found that guards used inappropriate force. In a lawsuit,

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Speaker 2: those detained there have alleged they were subject to forced labor.

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Speaker 2: Acama has denied the forced labor allegations, and the case

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Speaker 2: hasn't yet gone to trial. Ice did not respond to

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Speaker 2: requests for comment, and US Customs and Border Protection and

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Speaker 2: the Department of Homeland Security have not responded to claims

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Speaker 2: by detained immigrants Bloomberg spoke with. Nana also did not

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Speaker 2: reply to a detailed list of questions from Bloomberg.

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Speaker 4: However, in April, after a Facebook poll was conducted by

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Speaker 4: some shareholders who were concerned about this line of work,

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Speaker 4: the company did note that they felt like this work

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Speaker 4: did uphold their values of their community, and the company

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Speaker 4: noted that they were not able to disclose some of

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Speaker 4: the nature of the contract and speak publicly extensively at

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Speaker 4: the time.

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Speaker 2: But through the years, Nana's contract work through Akama and

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Speaker 2: the eight AA program has only grown. Polly says, it's

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Speaker 2: a noteworthy example of a diversity and inclusion initiative that

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Speaker 2: survived under an administration trying to get rid of them.

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Speaker 2: NANA subsidiaries have secured contracts worth nearly one point two

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Speaker 2: billion dollars to work with ICE over the past decade.

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Speaker 2: That's according to government contracting data compiled by Bloomberg Government.

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Speaker 2: So what does all this mean for NANA shareholders in Kotzebue.

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Speaker 2: Polly spoke with Roswell Schaeffer Senior, a man who's had

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Speaker 2: many lives in the city growing up.

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Speaker 5: Everybody had to help in the household to survive. So

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Speaker 5: we picked berries. We picked greens where we hunt constantly, and.

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Speaker 4: I picked salmon berry's yesterday.

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Speaker 3: Oh you did that all cool.

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Speaker 2: He's been a commercial fisherman, a subsistence hunter, and an artist.

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Speaker 2: He's been a mayor, a councilman, and a judge. And

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Speaker 2: from nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety two he was also

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Speaker 2: the president and chief executive officer of Nana. He told Polly,

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Speaker 2: the Nana of today is a far cry from the

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Speaker 2: corporation he oversaw.

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Speaker 4: So what kind of business was Nana doing at the

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Speaker 4: time that you were president.

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Speaker 5: Well, there they had a construction company, we had a

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Speaker 5: fishing business, oil oil services, electrical services up on the

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Speaker 5: Norse Smoke. We had all kinds of jobs light that.

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Speaker 2: Now with the ice contracts, Shaffer says, the corporation has

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Speaker 2: lost its way.

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Speaker 5: That's that the contract really goes contrary to our values. Absolutely,

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Speaker 5: the attention facilities like that are against our principles.

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Speaker 2: A lot of Nana's ice business is run thousands of

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Speaker 2: miles away from Kotzebue. So who's in charge and how

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Speaker 2: are shareholders making their concerns known? That's after the break

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Speaker 2: over the last decade. NANA, the Alaska Native corporation based

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Speaker 2: in the city of Kotzebue, has one contracts worth more

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Speaker 2: than one billion dollars to run and support ice detention facilities,

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Speaker 2: and residents of the community who get a dividend of

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Speaker 2: the corporation's profits, are starting to raise concerns that this

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Speaker 2: business doesn't align with the community's values, but Bloomberg's Polymosin

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Speaker 2: says that a lot of that business happens far away.

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Speaker 2: Kotspew doesn't have ice attention facilities in town, and the

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Speaker 2: subsidiary that handles nana's federal contracting, ACAMA, is headquartered thousands

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Speaker 2: of miles away from the Arctic Circle.

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Speaker 4: So they are run really kind of like a traditional

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Speaker 4: classic government contractor. It's exactly where you expect them to

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Speaker 4: be an office park in Virginia. You know, the folks

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Speaker 4: who are running it have a lot of career experience

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Speaker 4: in the federal government, and some folks who they're hiring

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Speaker 4: that's really what they've always done, just in this case

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Speaker 4: they're doing it for an Alaska Native corporation.

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Speaker 2: Crucial to all that business is Akima's CEO and president,

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Speaker 2: Bill Monet. He's a Virginia executive who's worked in government

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Speaker 2: contracting for decades.

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Speaker 4: Money is certainly well compensated. If we look at his

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Speaker 4: compensation over the last six years, it's almost forty million dollars.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, Money received seven point nine million

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Speaker 2: dollars according to a proxy statement filed by the company.

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Speaker 2: That's roughly two million dollars more than the total compensation

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Speaker 2: that year of the former CEO of Geogroup, the biggest

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Speaker 2: private prison operator in the country.

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Speaker 4: I do think that that is notable. You know, that's

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Speaker 4: certainly not all of Bill Monet's job. They do a

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Speaker 4: whole lot of other contracting. Dood work is a huge

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Speaker 4: part of their business, like it is with most federal contracting.

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Speaker 4: But I do you think it's important to know what

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Speaker 4: his compensation looks like.

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Speaker 2: Over that time, you mentioned that word began to spread

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Speaker 2: about these ice contracts that NANA had. How would you

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Speaker 2: describe that reaction among people in the community as they

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Speaker 2: learned about that, The reaction among shareholders to that news.

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people were shocked. They had

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Speaker 1: not heard of it.

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Speaker 2: Kotz's desire Hagen says that as news of Nana's ice

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Speaker 2: contracts traveled through the community. Some shareholders found it troubling.

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Speaker 1: One thing that comes up a lot is that it

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Speaker 1: goes against their value system. So there are different values.

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Speaker 1: It's in youpac illucusate, which is like, actually, I have

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Speaker 1: them right here a list. I think it's about let's say, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

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Speaker 1: I think it's about seventeen is when I'm counting, you know,

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Speaker 1: and their like respect for elders, respect for tribe, respect

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Speaker 1: for nature, you know, cooperation, hard work, humility, humor. You know,

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Speaker 1: they go on. But one of the things that I

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Speaker 1: heard a few people say is like, why are we

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Speaker 1: doing this to other brown people? You know, why are we,

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Speaker 1: as Indupac people doing this to another marginalized group.

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Speaker 2: Polly says some shareholders are starting to speak out. There

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Speaker 2: was that Facebook poll in March. The true response is

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Speaker 2: from one hundred shareholders, and a majority of respondents said

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Speaker 2: they disapproved of the work. A NANA shareholder emailed the

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Speaker 2: corporation's board expressing her disapproval of Nana's contracts with ICE.

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Speaker 4: A few months after she sent that letter, the shareholder

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Speaker 4: received a response from the board chair and the board

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Speaker 4: chair in a one page letter basically said we are

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Speaker 4: comfortable with these contracts. The board has conducted site visits

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Speaker 4: and that's that.

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Speaker 2: And in late July, the issue resurfaced at a community

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Speaker 2: meeting for NANA shareholders in the village of Deering.

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Speaker 3: My English name is ru Ramos. I'm calling from the

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Speaker 3: Lower forty eight, but I care deeply about what happened

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Speaker 3: to our community, to our people, and how NANA leads.

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Speaker 2: The meeting was intended to cover general business matters, but

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Speaker 2: several shareholders pressed Nana's board on why Akama continues to

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Speaker 2: work with ICE.

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Speaker 3: So I'm asking and hoping for leadership from Nana to

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Speaker 3: really assess whether those relationships are worth the financial woodfall

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Speaker 3: that's clearly coming our way. So I really encourage us

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Speaker 3: all to really think about being displaced from our lands.

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Speaker 3: As a Lower forty eight Innuit, I feel really strongly

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Speaker 3: that being displaced is the place in which our hearts

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Speaker 3: and our spirits go to die. So I really hope

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Speaker 3: that you all see the pain that where people are

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Speaker 3: causing problems. So I'm asking for sharing. You often known

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Speaker 3: we have RESK for connection.

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Speaker 2: Nana's president said he thought their comments were heartfelt, but

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Speaker 2: noted that connectivity issues made it difficult for some people

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Speaker 2: on the call to hear them. Meanwhile, Akama's business with

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Speaker 2: ice is continuing to grow. The value of Nana's ice

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Speaker 2: contracts this year is approaching three hundred million dollars, a

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Speaker 2: figure that Polly says is rising sharply.

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Speaker 4: That is an increase of one hundred million dollars since

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Speaker 4: last year. And while those are both plenty large numbers,

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Speaker 4: we also need to be looking ahead at the forty

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Speaker 4: five billion with a B dollars that are going to

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Speaker 4: be dedicated to this line of work in the future. Now,

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Speaker 4: I do think that as more people find out, perhaps

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Speaker 4: that those careers are going to be more frequent, perhaps

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Speaker 4: there'll be more shareholders asking these questions. But among the

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Speaker 4: shareholders who have posed the question so far, they have

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Speaker 4: not found a super robust plan from the board being presented.

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Speaker 4: They haven't released any information about moving away from these

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Speaker 4: contracts or anything like that, just that their impressions thus

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Speaker 4: far is that they will be continue with this line

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Speaker 4: of work and they do believe that their values are

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Speaker 4: being upheld in how they handle this line of work.

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Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David

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Speaker 2: Gurra to get more from The Big Take and unlimited

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