Leonardo DiCaprio, Reservation Royalties, and the $30 Million ICE Deal Controversy

Mia Reynolds, 12/19/2025When history echoes too loudly to ignore, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation chooses conscience over cash—turning away a $30 million ICE contract to break the cycle of displacement and honor their past, even as the future calls with tempting promises.

For most folks, the idea of funding immigrant detention centers in partnership with ICE isn’t exactly Sunday dinner conversation—more like a subject that prompts nervous sidelong glances and a swift change of topic. But among the Potawatomi, that discomfort runs deeper, wound like a scar through family stories and community memory. Forced relocation, “government contracts” that determined the difference between life and death—the echoes are still loud.

So when news broke that the Prairie Band Potawatomi were attached to ICE contracts—almost $30 million for “due diligence” and “designs” for detention centers—the social media storm rolled in quickly and loud. Terms like “disgusting” and “cruel” were volleyed across the digital landscape; suddenly, this wasn’t some dry, faceless federal RFP. It was a moral lightning rod.

To unravel why, one has to travel backward, past this year’s headlines, past last decade’s, deep into an era when deals between federal authorities and tribal nations never favored the latter. The ancestors of today’s Prairie Band Potawatomi were pushed from their Great Lakes homes, corralled onto Kansas reservations—a chapter few have the privilege of forgetting. Generational trauma has a way of keeping accounts open. Now, the question resurfaced in a new frame: should their economic drive, however well-meaning, cast others into confinement? Could they, as a people so long surveilled, sanction new barriers for those whose lives might rhyme with their own?

One hardly needed to squint to spot the historical irony. Tribal Chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick didn’t dodge it—in fact, he stared straight at the camera and said reservations were “the government’s first attempts at detention centers.” That line—firm, haunted—rippled from council chambers out through Indian Country and across the internet. Not every leader opens a statement with that much candor. By mid-week, a somewhat weary but unmistakably proud Rupnick tapped out the message: the Nation had “successfully exited all third-party related interests affiliated with ICE.”

But if it’s natural to ask how, one could say this story is as sticky as Kansas humidity. The Prairie Band Potawatomi haven’t shied from big business—health care contracts, construction, maybe even the odd interior design job. Those ventures aren’t just optional—they pay the bills, put food on tables, ensure the lights don’t flicker. This deal, with its $19 million opening bid that soon sprinted to nearly $30 million, represented yet another calculation in the long game of tribal sustainability. Except this time, the official language—technical, dry, almost anesthetic—masked a familial, communal pain. Somewhere between “due diligence” and “concept design,” ghosts from the past rattled the filing cabinets.

No surprise, then, that outrage came fast—online, on the rez, around the country. How could a nation of the displaced lend its name to the machinery of displacement? There were no easy answers inside the tribal council, either. Amid soul-searching and mounting public pressure, the figures who’d greenlit this venture were dismissed. The audit, as one spokesperson said, was just beginning—suggesting more will come to light, slowly, perhaps even awkwardly as 2025 gets underway.

Tangled in the paperwork and politics, the path led back to Ernest C. Woodward Jr. Former Navy man, noted middleman in federal contracts, the kind of behind-the-scenes adviser whose LinkedIn might raise an eyebrow (or three) in Indian Country. His imprint was all over KPB Services LLC, the shell set up to funnel the deal. Now? He’s vanished from the scene; exactly how remains shrouded in silence. Fire? Quiet resignation? Only a handful know.

By now, the tribe’s leaders have put distance between themselves and KPB, the entity that inked the ICE contract. “No longer has a stake,” the official line goes—though plenty remain unconvinced as to just how far the detangling reaches. Details are squirrelly, and trust, once shaken, doesn’t firm up overnight.

There’s a sense—sometimes spoken, sometimes not—that this saga has forced the Nation back to a fundamental question: what’s the price of progress? Even when survival’s on the line, where’s the boundary between hustle and heart? Chairman Rupnick has pledged tighter guardrails, promising the tribe won’t mortgage its values for one more government check. It’s an uncomfortable spotlight, but hardly unique—dozens of tribal nations, each balancing books and traditions, understand the tension.

Federal contracts, especially in a post-pandemic economy where every job secures a legacy, don’t come without strings. This time, those threads got too heavy; the ethical weight outpaced the windfall. As fiscal year 2025 unfolds, many will watch to see if the Potawatomi’s sentinel stance puts a dent in business as usual, or sets a cautionary precedent that others quietly follow.

In the end, the Potawatomi’s withdrawal becomes more than a well-publicized exit. It’s a reminder: history’s debts don’t vanish when the language gets softer or the dollar figures bigger. Sometimes, in the calculus of modern survival, the old wounds dictate the new deals. And once in a while, refusing to repeat a cycle becomes the bolder choice, even if it means saying no to millions.

An audit remains underway—slow work, but important. Because, as this episode shows, it may be easier to write new contracts than to reconcile with the history still echoing in the background. Especially when that history shapes both the lines you cross and the ones you refuse to redraw.

A $30 million federal contract—one of those numbers that makes accountants do a double take and can send a small nation's future down a whole new path. And then, in a moment that probably felt equal parts defiant and bittersweet, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation turned around and left every last cent of it behind.For most folks, the idea of funding immigrant detention centers in partnership with ICE isn’t exactly Sunday dinner conversation—more like a subject that prompts nervous sidelong glances and a swift change of topic. But among the Potawatomi, that discomfort runs deeper, wound like a scar through family stories and community memory. Forced relocation, “government contracts” that determined the difference between life and death—the echoes are still loud.So when news broke that the Prairie Band Potawatomi were attached to ICE contracts—almost $30 million for “due diligence” and “designs” for detention centers—the social media storm rolled in quickly and loud. Terms like “disgusting” and “cruel” were volleyed across the digital landscape; suddenly, this wasn’t some dry, faceless federal RFP. It was a moral lightning rod.To unravel why, one has to travel backward, past this year’s headlines, past last decade’s, deep into an era when deals between federal authorities and tribal nations never favored the latter. The ancestors of today’s Prairie Band Potawatomi were pushed from their Great Lakes homes, corralled onto Kansas reservations—a chapter few have the privilege of forgetting. Generational trauma has a way of keeping accounts open. Now, the question resurfaced in a new frame: should their economic drive, however well-meaning, cast others into confinement? Could they, as a people so long surveilled, sanction new barriers for those whose lives might rhyme with their own?One hardly needed to squint to spot the historical irony. Tribal Chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick didn’t dodge it—in fact, he stared straight at the camera and said reservations were “the government’s first attempts at detention centers.” That line—firm, haunted—rippled from council chambers out through Indian Country and across the internet. Not every leader opens a statement with that much candor. By mid-week, a somewhat weary but unmistakably proud Rupnick tapped out the message: the Nation had “successfully exited all third-party related interests affiliated with ICE.”But if it’s natural to ask how, one could say this story is as sticky as Kansas humidity. The Prairie Band Potawatomi haven’t shied from big business—health care contracts, construction, maybe even the odd interior design job. Those ventures aren’t just optional—they pay the bills, put food on tables, ensure the lights don’t flicker. This deal, with its $19 million opening bid that soon sprinted to nearly $30 million, represented yet another calculation in the long game of tribal sustainability. Except this time, the official language—technical, dry, almost anesthetic—masked a familial, communal pain. Somewhere between “due diligence” and “concept design,” ghosts from the past rattled the filing cabinets.No surprise, then, that outrage came fast—online, on the rez, around the country. How could a nation of the displaced lend its name to the machinery of displacement? There were no easy answers inside the tribal council, either. Amid soul-searching and mounting public pressure, the figures who’d greenlit this venture were dismissed. The audit, as one spokesperson said, was just beginning—suggesting more will come to light, slowly, perhaps even awkwardly as 2025 gets underway.Tangled in the paperwork and politics, the path led back to Ernest C. Woodward Jr. Former Navy man, noted middleman in federal contracts, the kind of behind-the-scenes adviser whose LinkedIn might raise an eyebrow (or three) in Indian Country. His imprint was all over KPB Services LLC, the shell set up to funnel the deal. Now? He’s vanished from the scene; exactly how remains shrouded in silence. Fire? Quiet resignation? Only a handful know.By now, the tribe’s leaders have put distance between themselves and KPB, the entity that inked the ICE contract. “No longer has a stake,” the official line goes—though plenty remain unconvinced as to just how far the detangling reaches. Details are squirrelly, and trust, once shaken, doesn’t firm up overnight.There’s a sense—sometimes spoken, sometimes not—that this saga has forced the Nation back to a fundamental question: what’s the price of progress? Even when survival’s on the line, where’s the boundary between hustle and heart? Chairman Rupnick has pledged tighter guardrails, promising the tribe won’t mortgage its values for one more government check. It’s an uncomfortable spotlight, but hardly unique—dozens of tribal nations, each balancing books and traditions, understand the tension.Federal contracts, especially in a post-pandemic economy where every job secures a legacy, don’t come without strings. This time, those threads got too heavy; the ethical weight outpaced the windfall. As fiscal year 2025 unfolds, many will watch to see if the Potawatomi’s sentinel stance puts a dent in business as usual, or sets a cautionary precedent that others quietly follow.In the end, the Potawatomi’s withdrawal becomes more than a well-publicized exit. It’s a reminder: history’s debts don’t vanish when the language gets softer or the dollar figures bigger. Sometimes, in the calculus of modern survival, the old wounds dictate the new deals. And once in a while, refusing to repeat a cycle becomes the bolder choice, even if it means saying no to millions.An audit remains underway—slow work, but important. Because, as this episode shows, it may be easier to write new contracts than to reconcile with the history still echoing in the background. Especially when that history shapes both the lines you cross and the ones you refuse to redraw.