The Department of Homeland Security plans to allocate up to $20 million to purchase gloves for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that can send electric shocks to a person’s skin upon contact, according to a notice released this week.
The device, known as G.L.O.V.E., or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, is marketed as a “de-escalation” tool and has been used by law enforcement and corrections departments. DHS intends for the order to be fulfilled by March 31, 2027, according to details listed in the notice.
The Associated Press first reported plans to secure the contract on Tuesday.
Compliant Technologies, which sells the device, said it is only available to law enforcement and corrections agencies, security services, military forces and emergency medical services. The company did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment and questions about the cost of the device.
“ICE is constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field to ensure they have the tools and equipment necessary to safely arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our country,” DHS said in a statement about the contract. “Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to ensure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards.”
The agency’s plan to acquire the device comes as its officers continue to have aggressive confrontations with citizens and migrants, some of which have resulted in deaths.
On Tuesday, a Virginia woman shared a video on Instagram of her encounter with ICE officers who berated her as she sat in her car. One of them can be seen pointing his gun at her as he accuses her of almost running them over and threatens to arrest her. The woman then denies trying to run them over and says she has dashboard camera footage as the officers walk away.
DHS described the woman as “an anti-ICE agitator” in a statement to MS NOW, saying she drove her car in circles around ICE officers “and then attempted to harm officers by weaponizing her vehicle against them” in an attempt to help undocumented immigrants.
Several Virginia Democrats have criticized the officers and said they are in touch with the woman. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, who said the woman is a U.S. citizen living in his district, wrote in a post on X: “How many more videos like this will we need to see, with Americans having guns pulled on them by Trump’s untrained ICE agents, before we get real accountability from ICE?”
Rep. Don Beyer also said in a statement on Facebook that “the habitual dishonesty and dangerous and unjustified escalation seen in this video matches what we have seen from ICE agents across the country.”
ICE has also come under fire for failing to outfit officers with body cameras despite Congress approving $20 million for the equipment as part of a spending bill in April. In two immigration operations over the course of a week in July, ICE officers fatally shot two immigrants. The officers were not wearing body cameras in either incident.
ICE has also faced fury from supporters of immigrants who have been working to release migrants who have been sent to detention centers, including spouses of U.S. military service members, on accusations that they entered the U.S. illegally.
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