Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick discussed his tribe’s decision to end its involvement in a $29.9 million federal contract to design potential U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities.
Rupnick was interviewed by Levi Rickert, publisher and editor of Native News Online, during a fireside chat at the Great Lakes Tribal Economic Summit hosted by Tribal Business News at Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort in Mount in Pleasant, Mich. on Wednesday, Oct. 7.
Rickert, a tribal citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, asked Rupnick about how KPB Services LLC, then a subsidiary of the tribe’s economic development company, Prairie Band LLC, secured the contract.
News of the contract drew national media attention and criticism from tribal citizens and others in Indian Country in 2025. Within 30 hours of the public disclosure, the Tribal Council and the board of Prairie Band LLC announced they had terminated senior members of the LLC’s leadership team responsible for securing the award.
Much of the fireside conversation between Rickert and Rupnick focused on how tribal economic enterprises, which often operate independently from tribal councils, should always align with the tribe’s principles and values.
This Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Should the economic development company’s business decisions align with the tribal council’s principles?
Chairman: Absolutely. Since I’ve been in office, that’s one of the things I’ve always expressed to our Tribal Council: Just because there’s a grant there, not all money is good money. If we have to give up even a small portion of our tribal sovereignty, is that money worth going after for some small benefit? I say no.
We’re in a position to make sure that we’re increasing our sovereignty over all these issues. Because of our LLC, and I know this was mentioned earlier today, they were trying to hit a home run and get something out of the park. It was a pretty good contract, and that was just the initial contract.
As you know, the administration was out there securing land, securing buildings and throwing money around like people throwing candy at a parade. A lot of folks were out there in the middle of that, snatching all that stuff up.
When our CEO and those guys were discussing this with me, I could see their point. But does that necessarily fit with our values and our principles?
The way I explained it to him was that, if you really think about it, Indian reservations were the United States government’s first attempt at a detention center. That’s the way I view it. A reservation was nothing more than a holding area for Indians.
Yes, we live on reservations. We all have different economic arms and things like that. But in the grand scheme of things, at the most basic level, why are we going to go out there and do to another group of people the same thing that happened to us?
Q: When you first found out about the contract, what happened?
Chairman: We were actually sitting in an entertainment board meeting, going over budgets and different things like that, and I got a text message from one of the council members who said, “Hey, did you see this doggone news article?”
I said, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
Apparently, it had been reported earlier that day by the local newspaper and local news station. I was completely blindsided and caught off guard. It was like, all right, let’s go. I started making phone calls, asking, “What the heck is going on?”
Obviously, the first thing we were looking at was, can we get out of this?
Q: By the time the executives who were involved were terminated, had the Tribal Council already determined that it wanted to end the tribe’s involvement in the contract?
Chairman: That was the first thing we were looking at: What do we have to do to get out of this contract, and what impact is that going to have?
A majority of our federal government contracting business was 8(a). We wondered whether this was adopted under our 8(a) program and whether turning down an 8(a) opportunity would have ramifications for us or jeopardize anything else we were doing.
Fortunately for us, it didn’t fall under our 8(a) program. It didn’t use our 8(a) status. It fell under the SBA, and so, as a small business owner for our LLC, that allowed us an escape hatch, I guess you could say, to get out of the contract.
We still have an 8(a) program. It hasn’t really impacted us, as far as I can tell, but we’ll see.
Q: How did you get out of the contract?
Chairman: We were just a subcontractor to another contractor. What ended up happening was that the contractor that was actually awarded the contract took over our portion, so we were able to get out of the contract.
Q: After you ended the contract, what happened next?
Chairman: Once we got out of the contract, we started looking at how that was going to impact us and what some of the other things were that we were doing.
We know there were some tribes that were actually contracted under their 8(a) programs that built one or two “Alligator Alcatrazes” and different things like that. They didn’t receive the national press that we did.
Had we not been alerted to it, I think our LLC probably would have gone ahead and started doing that. The way they were talking to us was that we weren’t necessarily building the detention center. We were mostly putting in air conditioning and enhancing huge buildings to be able to do that. But it was still going to be used for detention, and we wanted to get out of that as best we could.
Once we got out of that contract, our LLC started looking at what the actual governance setup was for the LLC. We wanted to make sure that the operating agreement the LLC has with the Nation was solid.
Right now, we’re going through those conversations. Some of the board members have asked, “Well, what contracts should we take?”
I just had this conversation with them the other day: Does it pass the smell test?
We can’t sit there and list every single department or agency under this administration and say, “We don’t want to do business with them.” We have to ask whether it puts us in a bad light. If so, then we can probably take a pass.
For example, we do have a recharging company, a recharging arm of the LLC. They could come to us and say, “We’re going to make all of our vehicles electric vehicles for the Department of Prisons.”
Because the Department of Prisons is running a detention center, does that mean we want to get rid of that contract? I don’t know. It’s a gray issue.
Some people have said, “Well, look at the casinos that tribes have. Are you taking advantage of people because you have a casino and you’re generating all this revenue and making all this money? What’s the difference between that and detention centers?”
My comment is that people are walking into our casinos freely. They’re allowed to do that. Whereas in a detention center, people are getting arrested, put in handcuffs and detained. There’s a difference.
Q: Many tribes across the United States have adopted what is sometimes called the “Harvard model” where there’s a separation between Tribal Council, economic boards and the corporation. What should Tribal Councils be watching for?
Chairman: That’s where I go back to our operating agreement. We really need to look at what our operating agreement currently says and what changes can be made so that we’re reasonably assured that we’re doing the right thing.
Locks only make honest people honest. If somebody is going to find a way around things, they’re going to do that.
So we need to figure out the best way we can use our operating agreement while still allowing the LLC autonomy and the freedom to generate revenue, but making sure that it still fits in line with our values and traditional principles.
Q: On a personal level, as a Native American and a Potawatomi man, what are your values when it comes to immigration in the United States?
Chairman: My personal opinion is that the people who are down south are Indians. I’ve told many people, “You guys are Indians. You just forgot your traditional lands.”
For the most part, they’re still Indians. Whether you look at them that way or not, I call them cousins.
Some of our old traditions say that if you look at the map of North and South America, it looks like an eagle. They say that every once in a while, the head is supposed to come down here and visit the tail. We’re supposed to do that.
That’s all part of the trade routes that we had. Where did corn come from? That’s where some of that trade came about.
We were all generally one people at one time. We freely shared, traded and moved across the land before Europeans arrived.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Chairman: I encourage tribes that are out there trying to generate revenue—and we hire people to generate revenue—to think about how those businesses fit in line with our guidance, our traditions, our customs and our principles.
I think that because of this administration, and because of how things are going, those are values and principles that we’re going to have to pass on to our kids.
How are they going to look at that? It’s not just about us here today. It’s about those who come after us.
