ONEIDA, Wis. — The Oneida Nation is working to cancel contracts with the U.S. President Donald Trump’s deportation agency to house detained immigrants. Tehassi Hill, chair of the Oneida Nation, issued an apology to his people after learning that tribal subsidiaries had entered $2.6 million and $3.7 million contracts with the U.S Immigration Control and Enforcement agency to build jails. “I was very upset when I learned about this,” Hill said in the video apology to the Oneida people from his headquarters in the Green Bay suburb of Oneida. These two business ventures, he said, do not align with the tribe’s values. ICE has been desperate to build detention camps on orders from Trump in April to arrest 1 million immigrants in the next 12 months. By October ICE had arrested 75,000 people but did not have have places to hold them pending detention hearings.
Hill. Reiterated his commitment to protect Oneida sovereignty as guaranteed under treaties with U.S. government. In his third term as chair of the Oneida Nation Business Committee, which is part of a consortium of tribes in Wisconsin and Michigan.