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Masked immigration agents stand outside a detention facility during a protest in New Jersey Alamy Stock Photo
shocking
US government plans to give immigration agents gloves that deliver painful electric shocks
The gloves deliver a sharp electric shock when they make contact with a person’s skin.
IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AGENTS in the United States may soon be wearing specialised gloves designed to deliver painful electric shocks.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intends to spend as much as $20 million (€17.33 million) on the gloves, which are described as “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices”.
The gloves are manufactured by a company called Compliant Technologies, which calls them GLOVE (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter).
The Associated Press reported yesterday that the US Department of Homeland Security, of which Ice is a part, posted a notice of the planned purchase on 10 August.
The gloves deliver a sharp electric shock when they make contact with a person’s skin. The user can turn them on by pressing a button near the bottom of each glove.
The idea that Ice agents may be getting this type of equipment has alarmed civil liberties groups in the US, especially in light of the many incidents in which they have been accused of using excessive force while carrying out president Donald Trump’s anti-immigration campaign.
Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told AP that the American public should have no confidence that Ice agents will not misuse the gloves.
“ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do,” she said.
“Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public.”
The ACLU said last week that it had filed 54 legal claims related to alleged abuse by immigration agents.
“Since president Trump took office again, immigration agents have terrorised communities in workplaces, schools and neighbourhoods across the country,” it said.
“The consequences of this violence and abuse have been devastating. Many people have suffered serious injuries and property damage, and some have lost their lives.”
In January, immigration agents shot and killed two people in Minneapolis and since then, federal agents have also killed two more people, in Texas and in Maine.
Additionally, more than 50 people have died while being held in Ice detention facilities since Trump took office in January 2025, according to Human Rights Watch.
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