ICE agents to be equipped with $20 million electric shock gloves

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Aug 12, 2026

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could soon be equipped with gloves that deliver electric shocks to subdue suspected undocumented immigrants or protesters as they carry out President Donald Trump’s controversial mass deportation campaign.

The Department of Homeland Security plans to buy thousands of the gloves capable of zapping suspects with painful 380-volt shocks in a no-bid contract worth up to $20 million, according to federal government purchasing records first unearthed by The Associated Press.

The device, marketed as The G.L.O.V.E., or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter by its Kentucky manufacturer, could be used by ICE to help detain suspects or to force compliance by protesters who ICE and Border Patrol agents accuse of impeding their operations.

Critics fear the gloves represent an escalation in the nationwide mass deportation campaign which has already led to the killings by federal agents of several suspected undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizen protesters, notably on the streets of Minneapolis last winter and in a small town in Maine last month.

“As if assaulting people and shooting people in the streets wasn’t enough. Now, they’re spending $20 million of YOUR taxpayer dollars on painful electric shock gloves for their masked, lawless goons,” U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., tweeted.

The National Immigration Law Center called the new gloves “disgusting and barbaric.”

Jenn Rolnick Borchetta of the American Civil Liberties Union called the new tool “a recipe for harm to the public.”

“ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force,” Borchetta said. “Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do.”

The device is already used by some police and prison agencies to restrain suspects who violently resist arrest or being moved by law enforcement.

It induces a quick sharp pain similar to a bee sting and often causes suspects to drop to the ground, allowing officers to subdue them within three seconds. The manufacturer, Compliant Technologies, warns they should not be used on children, pregnant women or the disabled.

The immigration enforcement agencies recently received $70 billion in funding in a spending bill passed with only Republican support last year.

DHS did not immediately comment on the gloves or plans for them to be used on the streets.

Newly minted DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has been on the hot seat since being appointed to lead the agency in March by Trump, who reportedly wants ICE to meet a quota of 2,000 arrests a day.

Mullin briefly ordered the agency to end traffic stops and vehicle chases after an ICE agent shot and killed an unarmed Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine. Trump quickly reversed the order.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including American citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were protesting the ICE crackdown in Minneapolis.

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