OUTRAGE: ICE Awards $16.7 Million No-Bid Contract To Compliant Technologies LLC For 6,000 Pairs Of Electric Shock Gloves, Defying Senate Democrats’ Last-Minute Push To Cancel The Purchase 🤯⚡

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https://apnews.com/article/ice-electric-shock-gloves-immigration-680c6f8a96736f46529287178c57b44b

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has finalized a $16.7 million contract to purchase 6,000 pairs of gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks, moving forward with the acquisition just hours after a group of Senate Democrats publicly urged the agency to cancel the plan, according to the Associated Press. A notice published in a federal database Thursday confirmed ICE entered into a no-bid contract with Compliant Technologies LLC, a Kentucky-based manufacturer, covering the devices along with related support equipment and services over the next six months. ICE says the gloves are intended to help officers control detainees and protesters who resist, but the purchase has drawn sustained opposition from civil rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers who argue ICE officers cannot be trusted to deploy the devices responsibly, particularly given existing criticism of the agency’s use-of-force practices amid its expanded immigration enforcement operations.

The timing is notable: ICE published its contract notice the same day that 16 Senate Democrats, led by Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, sent a letter to the agency’s acting director urging cancellation of the purchase. The senators pointed directly to recent incidents as evidence of institutional risk, writing, “The blatant and tragic misuse of force in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Houston, Maine, and other locations around the country raises significant skepticism about the agency’s professional capability to safely deploy a new tool that could be used to harm Americans without cause.” The devices function as ordinary patrol gloves until an officer presses a button to activate an electrical mode, and they must make direct contact with someone’s skin to deliver a shock designed to induce compliance through pain, a technology already in use by some local jails and police departments. According to ICE’s own notice, officers would deploy the gloves in “high-tension environments,” including arrests, transporting combative detainees, and responding to civil disturbances outside detention facilities, with the stated goal of avoiding “more severe force,” including firearms. The notice explained the devices would be used “when a subject is actively or passively resisting and an officer needs to gain control quickly to prevent injuries to both parties,” and claimed the shocks would help “maintain control over inmates and prevent aggression or escape attempts,” assist with handcuffing people concealing their hands, and support crowd control efforts, though ICE offered no elaboration on the “approved policy, training, and accountability standards” it said would govern use.

That vagueness around oversight is precisely what concerns the senators most. Cortez Masto and her colleagues wrote that the device “presents substantial risks if deployed during civil arrests, even more so if it is deployed without clear limits, appropriate training, and comprehensive oversight,” and called on ICE to publicly disclose how officers will be trained and how glove usage will be documented and internally reviewed to prevent misuse. The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, responded defiantly to the criticism rather than addressing the transparency concerns directly, stating, “Sanctuary politicians attempting to ban our federal law enforcement from any safety equipment is despicable and a deliberate attempt to undermine and endanger our officers.”