U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has awarded a $16.7 million contract to purchase 6,000 pairs of gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks, saying officers would use them to control detainees and protesters who resist.
ICE moved forward with the purchase despite opposition from civil rights advocates and Democratic members of Congress, who said ICE officers cannot be trusted to use them appropriately.
A notice published in a federal database Thursday said ICE entered into a no-bid contract to purchase the gloves from Compliant Technologies LLC, a Kentucky-based firm that manufactures them. The deal includes acquiring 6,000 of the devices along with support equipment and services over the next six months.
Civil rights advocates have said ICE officers already face criticism for their use of force with little oversight or accountability while enforcing President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
ICE published the notice hours after a group of U.S. senators, led by Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, urged the agency to cancel its plan to buy the gloves. In a letter to ICE's acting director Thursday, Cortez Masto and 15 of her colleagues in the Democratic caucus questioned ICE's need for the devices.
“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 letter said.
The senators were the latest to express opposition to the plan, which became public this month when ICE published a notice outlining its intent to purchase thousands of "conductive distraction and de-escalation devices" for officers and investigators.
The devices are normal patrol gloves until an officer presses a button to activate the electrical mode. They must be applied directly to someone’s skin to produce a shock that causes pain, which is promoted as a way to gain compliance from people who are resisting. They have been used by some local jails and police departments in recent years.
ICE's notice said officers would use them in “high-tension environments,” including while making arrests, transporting combative detainees and responding to civil disturbances outside detention facilities.
“It will be used when a subject is actively or passively resisting and an officer needs to gain control quickly to prevent injuries to both parties,” the document said.
It said that the shocks would help “maintain control over inmates and prevent aggression or escape attempts,” allow officers to handcuff people hiding their hands, and assist in crowd control. The goal would be to avoid using “more severe force,” including firearms. The notice said the gloves would be used with “approved policy, training, and accountability standards,” but it did not elaborate.
Cortez Masto and the other senators said in their letter 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.” They said ICE must make public details about how officers will be trained and how use of the gloves will be documented and reviewed internally to avoid misuse.
ICE's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, reacted defiantly Thursday to critics of the purchase.
“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,” the agency said in a statement.
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