Illustration: Bianca Bagnarelli for Bloomberg BusinessweekBusinessweekThe Big Take

Distant ICE Detention Centers Bring Money—and Anger—to an Alaska Native Community

Nana Regional Corp. is supposed to uphold Iñupiat values. Some shareholders say its role in Trump’s deportation machinery makes a mockery of that.

FacebookXLinkedInEmailLinkGiftFacebookXLinkedInEmailLinkGiftBy Polly Mosendz, Michael Smith, and Rachel Adams-HeardOctober 23, 2025 at 9:00 PM UTCBookmarkSave

Roswell Schaeffer Sr. has had many lives in Kotzebue, Alaska, a coastal town of about 3,000 just north of the Arctic Circle. He’s been a commercial fisherman, a subsistence hunter and holder of just about every local political position—mayor, councilman, judge. Eventually, he got the biggest gig in town: He took over as president and chief executive officer of Nana Regional Corp., an Alaska Native company of which he’s one of more than 15,000 Iñupiaq shareholders. From 1990 to 1992, he ran one of the largest companies based in a vast 38,000-square-mile region of the remote Arctic, one with outsize cultural, historic and economic importance to the Iñupiat people.

Nana’s stated mission is “to improve the quality of life for our people by maximizing economic growth” while honoring core Iñupiat principles, which include treating people with “dignity and respect.” When Schaeffer was president, Nana did that mostly by investing in Alaskan mining and hospitality businesses that hired shareholders. He says he took pride in the work.

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