U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has awarded a $16.7 million contract for thousands of electric shock gloves to be used by agents in the field, moving forward with the purchase despite objections from civil liberties advocates who raised concerns when the plans emerged earlier this month.
According to a notice posted in a federal contracting database, ICE entered into a no-bid agreement with Kentucky-based Compliant Technologies to acquire the equipment. ICE has played a central role in President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration enforcement campaign.
Under the contract, the agency will purchase 6,000 pairs of the devices over the next six months, along with related equipment and services. The gloves are capable of administering painful electrical shocks intended to interfere with an individual’s ability to respond.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, disclosed earlier this month that the agency intended to purchase devices known as CTG-5 Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, or GLOVE units.
The American Civil Liberties Union sharply criticized the planned acquisition, warning that providing immigration officers with “a concealed means of delivering terrible pain is a recipe for more harm to the public and less accountability.”
DHS, however, characterized the equipment as a tool intended to assist agents in controlling confrontations without escalating to more serious uses of force.
The department described the gloves as “a Conductive Distraction and De-escalation Device which will be issued to Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement Removal Operations officers and agents.”
The purchase comes amid heightened scrutiny of ICE and its enforcement operations. Fatal shootings by ICE agents involving two U.S. citizens in Minnesota earlier this year, along with concerns raised by advocacy organizations over conditions inside ICE detention facilities, have fueled protests against the agency.
More than 50 people have died while being held in ICE custody nationwide since Trump returned to the White House early last year.
Trump has defended his administration’s intensified immigration enforcement efforts as necessary to strengthen security inside the United States.
Civil rights and immigration advocacy organizations have strongly opposed the administration’s approach, arguing that the crackdown is discriminatory and infringes upon free-speech and due-process protections. Critics have also contended that the enforcement environment has created particular concerns for ethnic minorities, including fears of racial profiling.
{Matzav.com}
