Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to spend up to $20 million on thousands of gloves that deliver electric shocks, a tool the agency calls a "de-escalation device" but the ACLU calls a recipe for abuse.
The Department of Homeland Security published a procurement notice this week outlining a no-bid contract for what it describes as "conductive distraction and de-escalation devices," Newsmax reported. The devices are branded G.L.O.V.E., Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC out of Lexington, Kentucky. ICE wants them in hand by March.
The gloves look and function like standard patrol gloves until an officer flips a switch. At that point they deliver a painful electrical stimulus directly to a subject's skin, designed to force compliance from combative individuals within seconds. The solicitation for the no-bid contract could be published as early as Friday.
For an agency whose officers routinely confront violent resistance during arrests and removals, the appeal is straightforward. The question is whether the usual critics will let ICE use a less-lethal tool, or whether they will treat any effort to enforce immigration law as inherently excessive.
John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, is studying how the G.L.O.V.E. device has been used by jails and police departments that already deploy it. He told the Associated Press the sensation is brief and sharp.
"It's immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee sting."
Peters said ICE's planned purchase would likely be the largest from the company to date. He described scenarios where officers might use the gloves to remove uncooperative subjects from cars, houses, and detention facilities, situations that currently risk escalating into prolonged physical struggles.
He also pointed to a practical advantage for officers who may be physically outmatched.
"If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool. For smaller officers or weaker officers or older officers, I think it has a great advantage."
Peters said the devices are unlikely to cause injuries. The Washington Examiner reported that Compliant Technologies says the discomfort "is usually effective in bringing individuals into compliance in less than three seconds and leaves no burns, marks or scars."
Still, Peters acknowledged that a small number of employees would likely misuse any tool, and said it would be important for ICE to have strong policies and training in place. The manufacturer requires officers to complete a training course and recertify every two years.
The procurement notice did not appear in a vacuum. The Washington Examiner tied the purchase to two recent fatal ICE shootings during vehicle stops, one in Houston, Texas, and another in Biddeford, Maine. Those incidents drew scrutiny of ICE's use-of-force practices and created pressure on the agency to adopt less-lethal alternatives.
A DHS spokesman framed the purchase in exactly those terms. Just The News reported the spokesman's statement: "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."
That framing matters. ICE officers enforcing President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown face dangerous encounters on a daily basis. A tool that resolves physical resistance in seconds, without a firearm, without a Taser's barbed probes, without a prolonged wrestling match on the pavement, addresses a real operational gap. Every second a confrontation drags on raises the risk of injury to both the officer and the subject.
The manufacturer warns the devices should not be used on certain high-risk populations, including children, pregnant women, the elderly, and disabled individuals. That kind of manufacturer caution is standard for any use-of-force tool, from pepper spray to conducted-energy weapons.
Predictably, the ACLU moved to frame the purchase as a civil-rights crisis before a single device has been issued. Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, the organization's deputy project director on policing, told the Associated Press the plan alarmed her.
"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."
She also said the public should have no confidence that ICE officers will use the devices appropriately, and questioned why such tools would be necessary for civil immigration enforcement.
"Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public."
Notice the logic. The ACLU's position is not that this particular device is uniquely dangerous. It is that ICE should not have effective compliance tools at all, because the ACLU opposes the enforcement mission itself. Borchetta's complaint that the shock "maybe nobody else can see them do" is an argument against any tool that does not leave visible marks, which is also an argument against the tool being less harmful. She is simultaneously criticizing ICE for fatal shootings and objecting when the agency tries to buy something that is not a gun.
DHS, for its part, said it was working on a formal response to the AP's inquiry and offered no immediate comment beyond the spokesman's statement.
The no-bid structure of the contract deserves scrutiny from the right as well. Compliant Technologies LLC appears to be the sole anticipated vendor, and the company's founder and CEO, Jeff Niklaus, declined to discuss the deal. "Unfortunately, we are unable to speak on this subject," Niklaus wrote in an email.
A $20 million sole-source contract should come with a clear justification, that the product is unique, that no comparable alternative exists, or that operational urgency demands speed over competition. The DHS notice describes the items in terms specific enough to point to a single manufacturer. Whether that specificity reflects genuine market reality or contract steering is a question Congress and inspectors general should answer.
Several details remain unclear. The unit cost per device has not been disclosed. The exact number of gloves ICE intends to buy beyond "thousands" has not been specified. And the full content of the DHS procurement notice has not been made public beyond what reporters have described.
Peters, the in-custody-deaths researcher, said the G.L.O.V.E. devices have already been adopted by some jails and police departments in recent years, though the New York Post noted the specific agencies were not identified. ICE's purchase would represent a significant scale-up of the technology's deployment.
Immigration enforcement is physical work. Officers arrest people who do not want to be arrested, remove people who do not want to leave, and enter situations where resistance can turn violent without warning. Every use-of-force option on the spectrum, hands, batons, pepper spray, Tasers, firearms, carries trade-offs in pain, injury risk, and lethality.
A glove that delivers a brief electrical shock, requires direct skin contact, leaves no lasting marks, and resolves resistance in seconds sits at the lower end of that spectrum. It gives officers an option between bare hands and higher-force tools. That is precisely the kind of capability that use-of-force reformers claim to want, until the agency using it is the one they want defunded.
The training and recertification requirements are reasonable baseline safeguards. Peters is right that strong policies matter. And the no-bid contract structure warrants transparency. But the underlying question is simple: should ICE officers have effective, less-lethal tools to do a lawful job the American public elected this administration to carry out?
The ACLU's answer is no, not because the tool is dangerous, but because the mission is one they refuse to accept. That distinction tells you everything about where the real objection lies.
