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Support for Alaska Public Media on Demand.
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Comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents, 45 states and two U.S. territories.
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And I'm happy that I'm back. I'm just scared what's going to happen next.
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A Fairbanks woman has been released from ICE custody, but her future in Alaska is uncertain. From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Tuesday, November 11th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, rural communities rely on school buildings for emergencies, but many need major repairs. It's critically important that the schools remain the most resilient facilities in the community. Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. One Fairbanks woman is especially grateful to be home with her family for the holidays. That's after she spent a month in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Washington state. The Alaska desk's Shelby Herbert caught up with Achary Buntau about her ordeal and her hopes for maintaining her residency in the United States.
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On a brisk, sunny afternoon in early August. Achary Buntau, who turns 43 this week, was running an errand for her mom's Thai restaurant, topping off their supply of oyster sauce. Then it became one of the worst days of her life.
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Just got pulled over and they did not identify theyself until they had me in custody.
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She pulled out her phone and started taking a video while frantically trying to text her family about what was happening.
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Okay, I'm gonna put the handcuffs on you.
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I really wanna know what's going on because you're like taking and trying to hey, Siri, ma', am, message my bae.
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Buntau says she was told she was being detained for overstaying her visa, and then agents took her to a holding facility in Tacoma, Washington, until she was released on bail in early October. She says she was locked in a Dorm with about 60 other women. Buntau says it was hard to sleep and they weren't fed on time.
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The latest night I ever got dinner was at 2:30am and I just starved at night.
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Buntau was born in Thailand, but has lived in the United States since she was 11. She said she wasn't aware that there had been any issues with her immigration status, especially after she got married to her first husband, an American citizen. She's now married to a different American citizen and is the mother of six American children, four adults and two younger kids. She says the separation was hardest for them.
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My 12 year old, he was like in and out of the hospital for asthma attack. And now that I'm back He is fine like nothing.
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She also has a 2 year old son who relatives say would cry every night she was gone. Buntau was able to stay in touch with her family with a tablet she shared with dozens of other women in the detention center. She said those brief calls were one of her only sources of comfort behind bars. Being separated from her family was her biggest torment.
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Yeah, I was, you know, depressed. What they're going to do for Thanksgiving, I cook every year. Chicken Mac and cheese, sweet potato pie and the green bean casserole. So the kids love that.
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Buntau says she feels like her arrest was pretty random, but she's been convicted of a few nonviolent misdemeanors in Fairbanks over the last couple decades, as well as a felony for fraudulently applying for the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. According to court records, she pleaded guilty to falsely claiming US citizenship on her PFD application in 2014. She says that was a mistake she made while she was filling out the PFD paperwork for children who are American citizens. Now she's trying to get the conviction vacated so she can stay in Alaska with her family. Over the last few months, Buntau's friends and neighbors, Fairbanks officials and state legislators advocated for her release. Fairbankson's held a protest in her honor and her family was able to crowdfund over $20,000 for bail. Buntau says the fundraiser remains ongoing to cover her legal fees while she tries to get her green card. Margaret Stock is an Anchorage based attorney who is recognized for her expertise in immigration law. She says she's seen many people in Alaska face similar situations this year and that while the Trump administration insists ICE agents are only picking up the worst of the worst, she sees a lot of collateral damage.
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What I'm seeing are a lot of people being picked up, don't have a criminal record or it's something really minor. And of course in some cases they're picking up U.S. citizens.
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Stock says she's even working with an Alaska military veteran to fight deportation. Proceed. She says the majority of people she sees ICE detaining are eligible for a green card and that she believes ICE is putting pressure on them to leave the country by putting them in detention centers. But those proceedings can take years and Stock says legal resources are stretched thin, especially in Alaska.
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It's pretty hard to find help. I mean, there's a few private lawyers, but we're strapped thin, obviously. And then right now the immigration judges have more than 4,000 cases per judge. So getting a hearing with the judge can take a really long time, so it's really difficult if you don't have an attorney.
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That's the route Buntau is trying to take. She says she's cautiously hopeful she won't get sent back to Thailand, which doesn't feel like home to her anymore.
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So I don't know anything over there. I've been living here all my life mostly. Where would I live? Where would I go? What will I do without my kids, my husband and I'm happy that I'm back. I'm just scared what's going to happen next.
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Her husband, an American citizen who has never left the country before, is preparing to start his life over with her abroad if their worst fears come to pass. Buntau remains grateful for the time she has with her family, celebrating upcoming holidays and her 43rd birthday, but her thoughts remain with other moms she befriended in the Tacoma Detention center who won't be coming home. ICE did not respond to interview requests before press time. Reporting in Fairbanks, I'm Shelby Herbert.
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The number of Democrats running for governor of Alaska grew to 2 on Monday as Anchorage State Senator Matt Clayman entered the race. Clayman has represented west Anchorage in the state Legislature for more than a decade and says his experience working across the aisle prepares him well for the top job in state government.
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Running for governor because I think that.
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Alaska needs a person with my background.
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And experience and balanced approach to doing.
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What'S best for Alaska. Clayman is a member of the 14 person Senate majority caucus that includes nine Democrats and five Republicans. He's chair of the Senate Judiciary committee and in 2024 led the effort to pass a wide ranging crime bill that Republican governor Mike Dunleavy later signed. The bill stiffened penalties for drug dealers, among other changes. Clayman says his campaign will focus on public safety and education and both will be priorities in his budget if he's elected. I think we should pay an affordable dividend, but I also think we need to invest in our public schools and invest in public safety to protect our neighborhoods. Klayman is the second Democrat to officially enter the race following former Anchorage State Senator Tom Begich. Begich has said he plans to step aside if former Congresswoman Mary Peltola, the last Democrat to win a statewide election, enters the race. Klayman declined to make a similar commitment. Clayman also says he does not plan to resign his Senate seat to run for governor. He's the 14th candidate to formally enter the race. The top four vote getters in the August 2026 primary, regardless of party, will advance to the ranked choice General election candidates have until June 1st to join the race. Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, Nome Elementary School's first Inuit Day celebration highlights Inuit cult and figures.
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We're really focusing this year on culture and like having it be kind of a foundation of everything we do.
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That's ahead. Stay with us. A retrial over a fatal Unalaska car crash in 2019 began Monday in Anchorage. As KUCB's Theo Greenlee reports. The lead investigating officer told the court she recently found new photos and videos on her personal phone introducing new evidence in the years long case.
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The first day of the retrial of State of Alaska vs Dustin Ruckman began with an evidentiary hearing at Anchorage's Nesbitt Courthouse. Ruckman's first trial on two counts of criminally negligent homicide for his alleged role in causing the deaths of two teenage girls when his truck plummeted down Unalaska's Mount Ballyhoo ended in a mistrial earlier this year after the jury failed to reach a consensus. A judge moved the court proceedings to Anchorage because of a lack of impartial jurors in the small southwest Alaska community. The crash killed 16 year old Carly McDonald and 18 year old Kiara Renteria Haste, with at least two of the victim's parents. In court Monday, former Unalaska police officer Teresa Osu testified that she discovered additional photos and videos connected to the investigation on her personal cell phone, a violation of Unalask public safety policy, which prohibits using personal devices for evidence. ASU said she found the recordings after the first trial ended earlier this year. Osu said the photos were taken after she drove the parents of one of the victims up the mountain where the crash occurred in her personal vehicle. She said she gave them a ride because the gate to the top of Mount Ballyhoo was locked and she was the only one with a key. ASU told the court that it's very common for officers to escort people in Unalaska. When pressed by Ruckman's attorney why another officer had not escorted the parents, OSSU explained the department was very short staffed. Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews ordered the photos be entered into evidence, but said there were still questions regarding how much other information from Osu's phone could be used in the trial. A decision is expected Wednesday when court reconvenes. Reporting in Anchorage, I'm Theo Greenlee.
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Alaska has the highest percentage of veterans in the country, according to new economic data from the state Department of labor. Roughly 59,000 residents are veterans, making up 8% of the state's population, the national average is 5%. Dan Robinson is the report's author. He says the military brings many service members to the state and many make Alaska their home after they retire.
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A lot of people see Alaska and then because there's something about us that they like, they choose to stay here or come back here when their service is done. We also have a relatively high percentage of our population that enlists in the military.
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The study describes a veteran as someone 18 or older who has served on active duty in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps or Coast Guard. Alaska has long had the highest share of veterans in the country. Over 35% of veterans in the state are over the age of 65, according to the data. Almost a third are between 35 and 54 years old. Montana, Wyoming and Maine also have large shares of veterans, while New York and New Jersey had the lowest rates. Robinson says the data suggests there's a lifestyle preference among veterans for a certain quality of life.
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Alaska would share a lot of those things with all three of those states. Rural hunting and fishing, natural beauty, and you look at the states at the other end, you confirm that a little bit.
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Alaska's veterans most commonly live in Anchorage, the Matanuska, Susitna Borough and Fairbanks. After back to back storms last month, hundreds of people in remote communities all over western Alaska sought shelter in public schools. For decades, state and federal officials have relied on those buildings as de facto emergency shelters. But as KYUK's Emily Schwing reports, years of lacking maintenance funding means some schools are not as safe as they seem.
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The remnants of typhoon halong forced all of Kipnook's residents to seek shelter in the local public school. While the historic storm destroyed homes and other critical infrastructure. Outside, people shared meals, slept in hallways and classrooms, and sang together in their indigenous language, Yuktun. Inside, Kipnook's Chief Paul Memorial style school is the largest building in the village, where about 700 people live on a stretch of tundra in the heart of Alaska's sprawling Kuskokwim river delta. And it wasn't only Kipnook's residents that used their school as a safe haven.
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You know, our community is kind of dependent on the school for shelter.
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Lillian Olson is the principal at the school in Chevac.
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Like one time two years ago, we had an electric outage in one part of town that lasted for like a week or something, and because the houses didn't have electricity and no heat, we housed them.
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Last month, as ex typhoon ha long battered the Bering Sea coast, 65 people sheltered in Chivac's school. Some of them came from Hooper Bay because they felt safer. A dozen miles inland, 70 more people were sheltering in Hooper Bay's school. And 200 miles north in Kotlik, another 70 people spent two nights in the public school. And there are many other examples. The state has declared more than a dozen disasters since August 2024, and in at least half of those cases, public schools have doubled as emergency shelters. Alaska Senator Lukie Tobin represents Anchorage as a Democrat now, but she grew up in smaller communities, including Nome and Kodiak.
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It is the known fact in Nome and other places, if you need to evacuate, you evacuate to the elementary school. When I was a kiddo in Kodiak, when we'd have tsunami warnings, we'd go up to main elementary school. And so it is not like this hasn't been a very clear and easily understood truism about living in these communities.
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Those are lifeboats. They're the last place of refuge.
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That's Alaska's Emergency Management Division director, Brian Fisher.
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It's critically important that the schools remain the most resilient facilities in the community because we know very well we can't evacuate people in time when these storms are coming. And that is the last place of safety, the last place of refuge. And I rely on those. If they weren't there, we'd see more significant trauma and damage and death and injury than we do today.
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Alaska's public schools have a growing backlog of maintenance needs. In some cases, they're physically unsafe. Over the last year, ProPublica, Kyuk Public Media and NPR have documented a health and safety crisis inside many rural school buildings across the state. In Kipnook's case, the school's main generator was not fully functional even before last month's storm after ex typhoon Ha long forced the entire community to shelter there. The school district's superintendent says the additional draw on power taxed both the main generator and a smaller backup. Lillian Olson says her school in Chivac also has problems.
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The water sprinkler wasn't in working condition when we did have our fire inspection.
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But even though schools are frequently used as shelters and the state relies on them for that, neither Alaska's Education Department nor the state's Division of Emergency Management budget money to maintain the facilities as emergency shelters.
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Our department does not maintain schools.
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That's Craig Christensen, deputy commissioner of the state's Department of Military and Veterans affairs, which oversees the state's Emergency Management Division. During a state Senate budget meeting in 2024, Senator Lukie Tobin asked about funding schools as emergency shelters.
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So from my understanding, if the school wasn't available in some of these very small, rural, remote areas, we would be paying to evacuate people from those communities to a neighboring village and finding space for them to reside versus using an asset that we've already put resources into but have failed to maintain. Is that accurate?
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Through the chair, Senator Tubman, I can't comment on failing to maintain them.
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But you, you do utilize them.
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We do.
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Thank you.
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Christensen declined to comment further on last year's meeting. More than 50 rural communities reported damage from back to back storm systems in western Alaska last month. And in dozens of those places, people spent several nights sheltering in schools. In Anchorage, I'm Emily Schwing.
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The last time the US Arctic Research Commission met in Kodiak, Bill Clinton was president. Last week, the independent federal agency held its 121st meeting on the island. Over the course of two days, the Commission is tasked with recommending federal research priorities for federal agencies. In Kodiak, the group heard about local bear research, harmful algal bloom research, and other local research programs that all involve collaboration between a combination of state, tribal and federal entities. John Farrell, the executive director of the commission, says it's imperative that the commission hear from local scientists and researchers about what their priorities are. And then we take that information back to Washington, D.C. we try to make sure that researchers in all other parts of the federal government, including National Institutes of Health or NASA or NOAA or National Science foundation, have the benefit of what we've learned. Once the federal government shutdown ends, then a separate committee can write an implementation plan for the next five years of Arctic research. The federal government is accepting public comment on the development of its new Arctic research plan until November 15. As an environmental educator, Elizabeth Bagley's work has connected her with many corners of the world. Last month, she attended a global climate change conference in Italy. And it all started when an unexpected name appeared in her inbox. Pope Leo xiv.
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My brother in law and his wife were visiting from Seattle at the time and I ran out and showed them the email and I said, is this for real? And we all looked at it for a while. We looked at the email address and we said, yeah, that's a legitimate email address. It's not a spam email.
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The Raising Hope conference was organized by the Catholic Church's Laudato Si movement, which means care for our common home in Latin. It was inspired by a letter written by former Pope Francis calling for the Development of international law to address climate change. The conference brings together climate scientists and activists with spiritual leaders of all faiths across the world to discuss how they can come together to protect the Earth from the climate disasters. Over the course of three days, Bagley attended a variety of panels, including an address from Pope Leo himself.
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It was really heartening to hear someone who leads 1 billion with a B people around the world to say part of being a human on this planet is caring for our common home. It's not a political issue. It's absolutely something that as the people lucky enough to be here, that's our obligation and our responsibility and that was really, really moving to me.
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Bagley says she was inspired to see that despite the attendees various backgrounds, they were able to find common ground on the urgent need for climate solutions. Bagley says she's seen that before in Sitka.
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We feel it with landslides across southeast Alaska, right? We feel it with ocean acidification and other climate driven changes. And I think we also work to find solutions. There's so many different groups that are coming together to say, hey, what's the future that we want? Because we can create it, right? Nobody told us what the next chapter of life on Earth is going to be.
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Bagley was excited to connect with various spiritual leaders, something she doesn't get to do often in her line of work as a staffer at a climate solutions nonprofit. Bagley says the conference highlighted that leading with common values is key when connecting with people on a topic as politically divisive as climate change.
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I think that came through across the religious traditions that there is this theme of caring for our common home, regardless of what the doctrine of the different religious traditions says. And that was inspiring to see people who have different ways of interacting and supporting their communities realize that we all want to care for our common home. So regardless of which door we go through to get there, let's work together.
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And get it done.
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Bagley came home from Italy with a sense of optimism, ready to apply Laudato si's lessons to her own work, helping connect people with climate solutions to protect their common home. Well, Inuit Day is an annual event that began over a decade ago, but Nome Elementary School has never celebrated it. That's until this year when a former North Slope resident brought this cultural celebration to the Seward Peninsula. K Noem's Wali Rana was there and has this story.
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Nome elementary School's gym comes to life as over 40 students line the gym floor. They drum on blue plastic buckets for an indigenous themed drumming ensemble led by Nome Bell's middle high school's band director, Richard Sargent. Inuit Day was established by the Inuit Circumpolar Council in 2006 to honor Inuit culture. Inuit people are indigenous to regions of Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Siberia, with the Nubiak people in northern and western Alaska being a branch of the larger Inuit family. Nome elementary School's principal, Michelle Carden, moved to Nome from Oqiakwik earlier in the year. She says her vision this year is to focus on culture.
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I feel like so many regions I know and people I know celebrate it really big and it thought we're really focusing this year on culture and like having it be kind of a foundation of everything we do rather than. Rather than just being something we sprinkle on the top.
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This year's Miss Arctic Native Brotherhood, Birkin Nkazuk gives an inspirational speech to over 60 students and parents listening from fully packed bleachers. Carton says her goal of the event is to bring in good role models for the students. After an Unkazook speech, Elder Nutak Simmons speaks to the crowd. Simmons is an Inupiaq actress from Utqiagvik, known for her role in the Canadian comedy series north of North.
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Getting a chance to see an Inuit actress on Netflix and just like, really say hey, like, it gives a vision to kids of like, I could be an actress. I could be a pageant winner.
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President of the Inuit Circa Boulder Council, Marie Green joins the celebration through a video call.
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I worked hard to be the best leader I can be because of my honor and the encouragement and support elders, leaders and my family.
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Local Inupiaq language educator Kiminak Agviak finishes out the event with a demonstration on how to correctly pronounce indigenous words.
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Sometimes people say in uwit, but it's not like you're playing tag. Not you.
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It.
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It's ooey in ooee. Can everyone give me a ooh?
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The event culminates with drumming and dancing by a local dance group composed of youth and adults. As the drums echo throughout the gym, students and adults rise from their seats to join in one final invitational dance in Nome.
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And and that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're online@alaskapublic.org and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Shelby Herbert and Fairbanks. Eric Stone in Juneau, Theo Greenlee, Ava White and Emily Schwing in Anchorage, Davis Hovey in Kodiak, Ryan Cotter in Sitka and Wally Rana in Nome. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email, email us@newsalaskapublic.org Our audio engineers, Crystal Hyde. Madeline Rose is our producer. And I'm Casey Grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.