Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation signed deal in October, but president says tribe is now trying to exit contract
Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation signed deal in October, but president says tribe is now trying to exit contract
A Native American tribe in Kansas is facing criticism from other tribal groups after its economic development subsidiary secured a $29.9m federal contract from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to design potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities.
The development entity of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation signed the contract to design the detention facilities in October, leading to criticism that the tribal group, which was uprooted from the Great Lakes region to reservation lands north of Topeka, Kansas, in the 1830s, was itself benefiting from forced removals under the Trump administration.
In a video statement released on Friday, tribal chair Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick confirmed that KPB Services – a subsidiary of Prairie Band LLC, the nation’s economic arm – had signed the contract and apologized for the “concern, frustration and confusion” it had caused. “Right now, we are looking at all options concerning exiting this contract. We met with legal counsel immediately, and the process is still under way,” he said.
“We know our Indian reservations were the government’s first attempts at detention centers,” Rupnick added. “So we must ask ourselves why we would ever participate in something that mirrors the harm and trauma once done to our people.”
The statement came after the 4,500-member tribe said it had fired the economic development leaders who brokered the deal. “We are known across the nation now as traitors and treasonous to another race of people,” Ray Rice, a 74-year-old who said he and other tribal members were blindsided by the deal, told the Associated Press.
Carole Cadue-Blackwood, who has Prairie Band Potawatomi ancestry and is an enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, hopes the contract dies.
