Congressional Democrats are lashing out at the Trump administration over plans by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to purchase thousands of gloves capable of delivering painful electrical shocks, arguing that the agency should not be equipped with another use-of-force device amid scrutiny of recent encounters involving ICE personnel.
ICE disclosed Monday that it intends to spend as much as $20 million acquiring a device known as G.L.O.V.E., short for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter.
The agency described the technology in its acquisition notice as a “distraction and de-escalation device,” but Democratic lawmakers pointed to recent violent and fatal encounters involving ICE officers as they questioned why agents should receive an additional tool capable of inflicting pain.
“Senate Republicans had the opportunity to rein in ICE and CBP, they refused. Instead they handed DHS BILLIONS more of your tax dollars without any constraint after the shooting and killing individuals in the streets. Now, ICE is looking to purchase electrical shock gloves to continue terrorizing our communities,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote on the social platform X.
“How soon will they be used to inflict further cruelty?”
The controversy follows two recent fatal shootings involving ICE officers in Texas and Maine, as well as the emergence of video showing an ICE officer pointing a firearm at a woman in Virginia.
The Virginia woman, who is a U.S. citizen, said she possessed video contradicting the officer’s allegation that she had attempted to strike ICE personnel with her vehicle.
“ICE agents shoot innocent people. They pepper spray innocent people. And now the Trump administration wants to spend $20 MILLION to give them gloves to tase people. This is insanity,” Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee wrote on X.
“ICE does not need another weapon.”
Compliant Technologies, the company behind the gloves, includes a series of restrictions and warnings in its instructional material, cautioning that improper use could result in “injury or death.”
Although the manufacturer says the gloves are not considered dangerous when used on healthy individuals, its guidance advises against their use on pregnant women and elderly people. It also warns that individuals may have “underlying medical conditions that may or may not be easily discernable with casual observation.”
The company additionally instructs officers to “always give the subject(s) a reasonable opportunity to comply before force is used.”
ICE defended its decision to pursue the technology but did not directly answer questions about what specific rules would govern use of the gloves or whether agents would be required to follow all of the manufacturer’s recommendations. Instead, the agency pointed to its existing use-of-force policy and said officers “regularly receive ongoing use of force training.”
“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. Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to ensure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards,” the agency said in a statement.
The electrical charge requires direct contact with a person’s skin and cannot penetrate clothing. The manufacturer’s instructions also explicitly prohibit using the gloves merely in response to “verbal defiance” or employing them as punishment or torture.
White House border czar Tom Homan portrayed the technology as an option that could fall between lesser and more serious uses of force.
“Look, it’s another device to help someone be compliant, whether or not — you know, you just can’t go from zero to 100, right?” he said during an appearance on Fox News on Thursday.
Homan said there was no immediate timetable for deploying the gloves. He also suggested the technology might be better suited for detention centers, where officers generally have more information about the individuals they are dealing with, rather than encounters involving members of the public.
“There’s a lot of training involved. There’s still some background issues that need to be dealt with. So the implementation of these gloves out in the field are going to be a while. I think they serve a better purpose in detention facility, where detainees get out of control and there’s fights in the facility,” Homan said.
“So we’ll see. Still, the training protocol is being written and being reviewed. Then we’ll see when they get rolled out.”
Democratic lawmakers nevertheless portrayed the planned purchase as another example of what they say is excessive and abusive immigration enforcement.
“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,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) wrote on X.
“This is just not the government people want. A government so sadistic and cruel that it delights in using your hard earned tax dollars to buy gloves that shock people upon contact,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on X.
The recent encounter involving Virginia resident Carolina Molina has also become part of the debate over whether ICE personnel can be trusted to use the devices appropriately.
Video Molina posted to social media begins with an ICE officer aiming a gun through her open vehicle window and accusing her of attempting to run over agents. Molina responds that they are “full of s—” and says she has dashcam footage that would disprove the allegation.
When Molina tells the officer that she is an American citizen, the agent threatens to arrest her and responds, “I don’t care.”
“Electroshock gloves to be worn by ICE agents. Masked agents pulling a gun on a U.S. citizen. We can’t keep funding agencies that encourage this kind of behavior in their ranks,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) wrote on X, also pointing to recent deaths at the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said during a Wednesday press conference that her office is examining the planned purchase to determine whether there could be grounds for legal action.
James also warned that if anyone in New York is injured through use of the gloves, she would be prepared to pursue the matter in court.
“Of course, we are outraged, and in the event that a New Yorker is injured as a result of these gloves, obviously there will be a private right of action as well as action from the state of New York,” she told reporters.
“You can best be assured of that.”
{Matzav.com}
