Kansas tribal leaders 'exploring options' to ditch company's $30 million ICE contract

Matthew Kelly, The Kansas City Star on Dec 10, 2025

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Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation has fired senior members of a limited liability company’s leadership team and denounced a $30 million contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

“As a sovereign Nation, our values guide the decisions we make, and we acknowledge that this contract does not align with those principles,” reads the Tuesday statement, issued jointly with Prairie Band LLC, which serves as a revenue source for the tribe.

The contract, awarded by the Department of Homeland Security on Oct. 31, is for the design of ICE detention centers. It’s set to expire on Oct. 30, 2026.

ICE is working to expand its capacity across the country to detain immigrants arrested by federal authorities in accordance with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. ICE has contracted with CoreCivic to operate a detention center in Leavenworth, but a dispute with local officials has so far prevented it from opening.

Prairie Bande LLC’s ICE contract calls on the company to perform “due diligence services and concept design for processing centers and mega centers throughout the United States” but does not name any specific detention sites.

A spokesperson for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, which is located near Mayetta, Kansas, told The Star that tribal leaders are working to extricate Prairie Band LLC from the contract in compliance with federal law.

“The Nation is actively exploring options to get out of the contract,” spokesperson Jaclyn Driscoll said Wednesday.

Representatives for DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to phone and email requests for comment.

The change in leadership at Prairie Band LLC appears to be a direct result of public criticism over the $29,914,916 contract.

“We take this matter seriously, and in response, Prairie Band LLC and Tribal Council have made the decision to terminate senior members of the LLC’s leadership team. Moving forward, we are also taking a closer look at the internal review and approval process for federal contracts,” the Tuesday statement reads.

Another spokesperson for the tribe declined to name any members of the LLC’s leadership team who were fired, but emphasized that none of the terminated employees held roles within the tribal government.

In a Topeka Capital-Journal article published Tuesday before the leadership shakeup, Prairie Band LLC President Jacob Wamego said the majority of the company’s work comes from federal contracts.

“Prairie Band LLC has a number of companies that primarily do work for the federal government, utilizing our knowledge,” Wamego told The Capital-Journal. “We have a construction team, a staff team, a design team, and we provide design services for a number of agencies Indian Health Services, Veterans Affairs, DOD.”