[News] ICE Is Buying Up to $20 Million Worth of Electric Shock Gloves

[Anti-Imperialist News]

truthout.org
<https://truthout.org/articles/ice-is-buying-up-to-20-million-worth-of-electric-shock-gloves/>
ICE Is Buying Up to $20 Million Worth of Electric Shock Gloves
Sharon Zhang
August 12, 2026|

The manufacturer says the gloves can allow ICE agents to force compliance
within seconds.
[image: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents run out of Delaney
Hall Immigration Detention Center as they protect vehicles during a shift
change on June 7, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey.]Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents run out of Delaney Hall Immigration Detention
Center as they protect vehicles during a shift change on June 7, 2026 in
Newark, New Jersey.Adam Gray / Getty Images

*Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by
readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with **a
donation*
<https://support.truthout.org/-/XXQLBDSX/&utm_source=truthout&utm_medium=bcb&utm_campaign=304219>
.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is buying up to $20 million worth
of gloves that can allow agents to issue a painful electric shock to force
people into compliance, granting the agency yet another tool as it
extrajudicially abducts and kills people across the country.

According to a notice
<https://apfs-cloud.dhs.gov/record/74524/public-print/> posted by the
Department of Homeland Security on Monday, ICE is planning to spend between
$10 million and $20 million on the gloves. The product is made by a
Kentucky-based company known as Compliant Technologies LLC, and is called
the “Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter,” or the G.L.O.V.E.

The devices look like a normal pair of work gloves and are described
<https://www.complianttechnologies.net/the-glove> by the company as an
“invisible partner” and “force multiplier” for law enforcement. When the
electric shock function is turned on with a button on the back of the
glove, an officer can then administer a shock by laying hands on the
subject’s bare skin.

This can force a subject to comply within seconds, Compliant Technologies
claims.

“It’s immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee
sting,” Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths President John
Peters told *The Associated Press*
<https://apnews.com/article/ice-electric-shock-gloves-85ff746d3e0ee5f39e7a9a3f1f576252>.
Peters’s organization has been studying the device. “If the officer is
getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an
effective tool.”

Peters says that it would offer a “great advantage” to officers who are
weaker, and can be used to force ICE subjects to exit homes or vehicles or
to move in and out of ICE detention centers.

Civil liberties advocates have raised alarm about the devices, noting ICE
agents’ extensive abuses amid the Trump administration’s immigration raids
across the U.S.

“ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use
force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push
of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do,” said Jenn Rolnick
Borchetta, an expert on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, to
*AP*. “Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible
pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public.”

“ICE has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to use aggressive and even
deadly force against immigrants and U.S. citizens alike,” said Kica Matos,
president of the National Immigration Law Center, in a statement. “Arming
poorly trained agents with electric shock gloves to inflict pain on our
neighbors is disgusting.”

The product’s user manual warns
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cQ176YYgNl3VXCgLX0ScoihsfXyATpfY/view>
that use of the product can “increase the affects [sic] that can cause
sudden death,” like disruptions to heart rhythm, blood pressure, and blood
chemistry.

The company warns that it should not be used on particularly vulnerable
populations like the elderly, children, and pregnant people. The company
also says that it should not be used as punishment or on people merely
expressing verbal defiance or belligerence, and that it should not be
applied for more than 15 seconds.

The purchase grants another tool to ICE agents, whose agency already faces
scrutiny for abuses. ICE agents have shot and killed at least 10
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/09/ice-immigration-shooting-deaths-trump>
people since the start of the second Trump administration, while at least
54 people
<https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2026/ice-detention-deaths-database/>
have been killed in ICE custody since 2025, as deaths in detention have
reached record highs.

Meanwhile, the purchase is a drop in the bucket for the agency after
Congress granted
<https://www.npr.org/2026/06/09/nx-s1-5851664/house-reconciliation-vote-immigration-enforcement-ice-border-patrol>
another $70 billion to ICE and Border Patrol earlier this year, on top
of another
$75 billion
<https://www.npr.org/2026/04/13/nx-s1-5771608/immigration-congress-75-billion>
infusion last year.
An important fundraising appeal: 6 Days to raise $39,000

Truthout is one of only a few platforms for justice-oriented, grassroots
journalism. Today, as political censorship from the right intensifies, we
have no choice but to ask for your help.

*We are fundraising right now to cover our basic operating expenses.* If
you can support Truthout with a one-time or monthly donation, you will make
a significant impact on our work. Anything you can do makes a difference —
we appreciate your support.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20260814/0ab2b426/attachment.htm>