ICE places $7 million, one-month El Paso detention order with Anchorage-based Paragon

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a $7 million order with Anchorage-based Paragon Professional Services, a subsidiary of Bering Straits Native Corporation, to keep providing detention and transportation services at ICE's El Paso, Texas, processing center through Oct. 31, federal records show.

Paragon has held that work since 2022 under a five-year contract that runs through Sept. 29, 2027, with a potential value of about $331 million. The new order, signed Sept. 24, is the fifth under the contract and covers one month; the four before it each ran a year. Together, the five orders total about $268 million, according to USASpending.gov.

Across all its ICE work, Paragon has received about $335 million in orders since 2022. That includes guard and transportation services in the New York City, Newark and Baltimore areas and transportation of detainees for multiple ICE field offices. The company also does environmental cleanup and construction work for other federal agencies.

Bering Straits is the Alaska Native regional corporation for the Bering Strait and Norton Sound region. It is headquartered in Nome and owned by more than 8,100 Alaska Native shareholders. In a 2019 letter to shareholders about the El Paso work, which another subsidiary held at the time, the corporation said government contracting helps pay for shareholder dividends, scholarships and jobs.