U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has awarded a $16.7 million contract for 6,000 pairs of gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks through direct skin contact, placing a discreet new force device on a path toward widespread use by immigration officers and agents.
WASHINGTON | Published at 1:29 p.m. EDT
The purchase is confirmed. The full deployment is not.
A federal contract notice says ICE selected Compliant Technologies LLC, a Kentucky company, through a no-bid procurement covering the gloves, support equipment and services over six months. The agency says the devices are intended to help personnel control resisting people in high-tension settings while reducing reliance on more severe force, including firearms.
What remains unclear is when the gloves will reach individual officers, which units will receive them first, what final policy will govern each activation and whether every use will be recorded, medically reviewed and disclosed. The public contracting documents refer to approved policy, training and accountability standards but do not provide the operational detail needed to judge those safeguards.
That gap is at the heart of the controversy. The glove looks like ordinary patrol equipment until an officer activates its electrical function. Unlike a conducted-energy weapon that fires visible probes, it works at arm’s length and requires contact with a person’s skin. Its compact design could help an officer regain control during a struggle. The same design could also make an unnecessary shock difficult for witnesses or cameras to detect.
ICE’s procurement arrives during President Donald Trump’s expanded immigration-enforcement campaign, when agents are making arrests in homes, vehicles, workplaces and public spaces while facing intensifying scrutiny over force, masked operations and the treatment of protesters and bystanders. The gloves therefore are not entering a neutral policy environment. Their risks and claimed benefits will be judged against the agency’s current record and the transparency of its controls.
From proposal to a $16.7 million contract
The procurement first drew national attention in August, when the Department of Homeland Security published notice that ICE planned to spend between $10 million and $20 million on what it called “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices.”
On August 27, ICE moved forward with a $16.7 million award for 6,000 units. The Associated Press and Reuters reported that the contract was issued without competitive bidding to Compliant Technologies, the maker of the device.
The product is known as the G.L.O.V.E., an acronym for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. Compliant Technologies also describes it as a conductive distraction and de-escalation device. It functions as a regular patrol glove when the electrical mode is off. An officer presses a switch to activate the shock capability and then must touch exposed skin to deliver the electrical stimulus.
The manufacturer has promoted the device as a less-lethal method for gaining compliance, saying the discomfort can work within seconds without leaving burns, marks or scars. Those are manufacturer claims, not guarantees that every real-world use will be safe or leave no injury.
Voltage alone does not describe the medical effect of an electrical weapon. Current, waveform, duration, path through the body, repeated applications and an individual’s health can all matter. A high voltage figure can sound dramatic while providing an incomplete picture of delivered energy. Conversely, describing a device as low output does not make prolonged or repeated exposure harmless.
The contract notice says the gloves may be used during arrests, the transport of combative detainees and civil disturbances outside detention facilities. It says they could help officers control people who hide their hands, prevent aggression or escape and respond to active or passive resistance.
“Passive resistance” is a particularly consequential phrase. It can encompass conduct very different from punching, reaching for a weapon or attempting escape. Without a narrow definition, a device intended for dangerous struggles could be applied to someone who refuses to stand, holds onto an object or does not immediately comply with commands.
DHS says the gloves protect officers
The government’s case begins with the hazards of close-contact enforcement. Immigration officers sometimes arrest people who fight, barricade themselves in vehicles, conceal their hands or attempt to flee. Transport officers may also face assaults in confined spaces where drawing a firearm or firing a projectile weapon would create additional danger.
ICE says it needs a nonlethal option capable of gaining control quickly. The contract describes the glove as a way to prevent injuries to officers and subjects and to avoid more severe force.
DHS defended the purchase after 16 Democratic senators urged ICE to cancel it. In a public statement reported by the Associated Press, the department accused what it called sanctuary politicians of trying to deny safety equipment to federal law enforcement and said that such opposition endangered officers.
Earlier, DHS said ICE continually assesses field needs and reviews technology for consistency with applicable law-enforcement policies and standards. That response establishes the department’s position but does not answer the device-specific questions about activation thresholds, medical screening, use reporting or discipline.
A less-lethal tool can reduce harm if it replaces a firearm, baton strike or prolonged physical fight. But it can increase total force if officers use it in situations that would otherwise have ended through communication, time, distance or lower-level control. The important measure is not simply whether the glove is less dangerous than a gun. It is whether officers use it only when force is necessary and proportionate.
The warnings in the product’s own guidance
The manufacturer’s instructions underline the need for strict limits. According to reporting by the Associated Press, the device should not be used against small children, pregnant women, elderly people or people with severe disabilities. The manual also warns against using it for verbal defiance, punishment, torture or horseplay.
Those restrictions are relevant to ICE because its officers routinely encounter families, children, older adults, pregnant people and individuals with medical or physical disabilities. An arresting officer may not know a person’s pregnancy status, heart condition, implanted medical device or medication history during a rapidly developing encounter.
The device also requires contact with bare skin. That design may encourage officers to seek exposed areas during a struggle or pull clothing aside, raising additional questions about dignity, searches, body location and documentation.
The manufacturer recommends limiting exposure, according to AP’s review. Yet a pending lawsuit involving a Kentucky jail alleges that a 43-year-old man died in 2024 after officers shocked him 27 times with the gloves and 13 additional times with a Taser. An internal detention-center investigation found that two glove applications lasted 45 seconds and 99 seconds, far beyond a recommended 15-second limit.
The lawsuit’s claims have not been finally adjudicated, and the existence of litigation does not establish that the gloves caused the death. Still, the reported duration and repetition demonstrate how field use can depart sharply from written guidance.
AP also identified two other lawsuits alleging glove-related injuries, including one involving a man with heart problems shocked at a Las Vegas trade show and another involving a defendant who said he was unnecessarily shocked in court. Both cases were dismissed. Their dismissal means they should not be presented as proven misconduct, but the allegations reinforce the need for independent evidence about safety and use.
Why critics see a hidden accountability problem
Civil-rights advocates say the glove’s low visibility is a central danger. A hand can remain on a person during a search, restraint or escort, and an observer may not know the electrical mode has been activated. The device is designed not to leave the contact marks associated with some other electrical weapons, which could make later complaints harder to verify.
Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, told AP that a device capable of delivering severe pain with a nearly invisible button press creates a recipe for public harm, particularly when ICE already faces accusations that its personnel use force too quickly.
Former acting ICE director John Sandweg warned in a public television interview that the tool could be misused against people who pose no threat. Northern Kentucky University law professor Michael Mannheimer raised a related concern: giving agents immediate access could lead them to skip lesser force that might have worked.
Sixteen Democratic senators, led by Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, asked ICE to stop the purchase and questioned the agency’s ability to deploy it safely. Their letter called for public disclosure of training, use documentation and internal review procedures.
Their criticism is a political and oversight position, not a judicial finding that the contract is unlawful. No court ruling cited in the current public record has barred ICE from completing the purchase.
The policy questions ICE has not publicly resolved
Before field deployment, ICE should be able to answer several straightforward questions.
First, what conduct authorizes a shock? A policy should distinguish a physical attack, an escape attempt, active resistance and passive noncompliance. Broad language such as gaining compliance gives officers too much interpretive room unless accompanied by examples and prohibitions.
Second, how long can the electrical function remain active, and how many applications are allowed? Each activation should be time-limited electronically if possible. Repeated use should require a renewed threat assessment and immediate supervisory review.
Third, where on the body may the glove be applied? The head, neck, chest, groin and other sensitive areas should receive specific treatment in policy. A ban that exists only in training slides is less dependable than one written into binding rules.
Fourth, how will officers screen for vulnerable people? Because some conditions are invisible, policy needs a default approach for uncertainty, not merely a list of people who should not be shocked.
Fifth, what medical response follows a use? ICE should specify when emergency care, on-site evaluation or continued observation is required, particularly after prolonged exposure, multiple shocks or signs of distress.
Sixth, will each use be visible in agency records? An electrical activation should trigger automatic logging where technology permits, a written force report, supervisor review and preservation of body-camera footage. Aggregate statistics should be published without identifying detainees.
Seventh, what happens when the device is misused? Accountability requires more than a rule. It requires investigation timelines, discipline standards, complaint access and outside review.
A question of deployment, not only procurement
The phrase “ICE is arming agents with shock gloves” captures the direction of the contract, but it can imply that every device is already in the field. The available record confirms an award for 6,000 gloves and associated services. It does not confirm that all units have been manufactured, delivered, assigned or activated during operations as of September 10.
That distinction should not minimize the purchase. Six thousand units could reach a large share of personnel in ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations components. The scale makes this more than a small pilot program.
It does mean oversight is still timely. Congress can request the contract, training curriculum, testing data, use-of-force policy and rollout schedule. Inspectors general can audit the award and deployment. Courts can examine particular uses under constitutional force standards. State and local prosecutors may evaluate conduct that occurs within their jurisdictions, although federal authority and immunity questions can complicate those cases.
Public scrutiny should also follow the evidence. The gloves are not Tasers, despite comparisons between the two. They work through direct contact rather than fired probes and are primarily promoted as pain-compliance tools. They should not be described as automatically lethal, nor should their designation as less-lethal be confused with risk-free.
The standard must be necessity, not novelty
Law-enforcement agencies regularly seek tools that promise more control with fewer injuries. Some innovations do reduce risk. Others expand the situations in which force is used because the device appears easy, discreet or medically benign.
ICE’s $16.7 million purchase deserves scrutiny precisely because both outcomes are possible. In a genuinely violent confrontation, an electrical glove might end a struggle without a gunshot. In a routine civil arrest, the same glove could deliver intense pain to a person whose resistance posed no meaningful danger.
The difference will be determined by policy, training, supervision, data and consequences for misuse. None of those safeguards should remain hidden behind the contract’s broad assurance that accountability standards will exist.
The federal government has now committed public money to obtain the devices. Its next obligation is to show the public exactly when, how and against whom they may be used.
Until ICE publishes that framework and reports actual deployments, the most accurate conclusion is also the most unsettling one: the agency has bought a powerful pain-compliance tool at national scale, while the rules that would allow the public to judge its use remain incomplete or undisclosed.
Reporting and interview disclosure
This article is an independently written analysis based on federal procurement information, publicly released agency and manufacturer statements, court allegations and attributed reporting from the Associated Press, Reuters and other cited outlets.