ICE Wants $20M Electric Shock Gloves. Congress Must Stop This.

Dear Members of Congress, Today, the Associated Press and CNN confirmed that ICE is planning to spend up to $20 million on electric shock gloves — devices that function as normal patrol gloves until an officer activates them with a hidden switch, delivering a painful shock directly to a person’s skin. We are writing to demand that Congress block this procurement immediately. The gloves will be deployed by an agency that already operates with minimal oversight and that has adopted a formal policy of releasing bodycam footage only when it is in ICE’s own “best interests.” Civil rights attorneys are warning that a hidden button press may be effectively invisible to the cameras that exist precisely to check officer force. There is no independent oversight mechanism that would flag misuse. The manufacturer itself warns the device should not be used as punishment, against people exhibiting only verbal defiance, or on vulnerable populations — including children, pregnant women, the elderly, and disabled people. These warnings are not enforceable. ICE sets its own policies. This procurement does not exist in a vacuum. It comes as 50 people have died in ICE custody since this administration took office — the most in decades. It comes as a sitting U.S. senator was tear-gassed outside a detention facility. It comes as Congress’s own right to conduct unannounced inspections of ICE facilities has been restricted. An agency with a documented history of in-custody deaths, limited transparency, and restricted oversight should not be handed a weapon specifically designed to inflict pain — activated by a switch no camera can see. We demand that Congress block the G.L.O.V.E. procurement, hold oversight hearings on ICE’s use of force policies, and restore mandatory bodycam transparency requirements for all ICE interactions. This is not de-escalation. This is a torture device with a government purchase order. Respectfully,