ICE is set to embrace a dystopian new weapon that literally shocks people into submission.
As President Donald Trump continues his mass-deportation campaign, ICE is planning to equip its agents with gloves that deliver painful electric shocks to migrants, the Department of Homeland Security announced in a notice on Monday.
The agency is planning to spend between $10 million and $20 million on the devices, known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. The contract will be awarded on a no-bid basis, according to the Associated Press.
The gloves’ maker, Compliant Technologies, says they work as normal patrol gloves until a switch is pressed to activate the electric mode. If the activated glove touches someone’s skin, it delivers a painful shock.
Compliant Technologies, based in Lexington, Kentucky, states that “the discomfort associated with the stimulation is usually effective in bringing individuals into compliance in less than three seconds and leaves no burns, marks or scars.”
The gloves have been used by some jails and police departments, including the Omaha Police Department in Nebraska and the Mobile County Metro Jail in Alabama.
ICE’s plan to distribute the gloves to its agents sparked outrage amongst civil rights advocates, who pointed out that ICE officers already have a troubling record of using excessive force under the Trump administration.
Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, questioned the need for electric gloves in civil immigration enforcement and warned that ICE agents could use them without accountability.
“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 White House, the DHS, and Compliant Technologies did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Compliant Technologies says no more than two of its electric-shock gloves should be used on a person at once. The company also warns against using the devices as punishment, on people showing only “verbal defiance or belligerence,” or on children, pregnant women, older adults, or people with disabilities.
A July report by the ACLU that reviewed more than 1,200 immigration enforcement operations involving ICE found that nearly a third of the incidents involved the use of force or the threat of force. Researchers found more than 400 instances in which immigration agents pushed, tackled, or pinned people to the ground, according to NPR.
But out of 56 complaints of excessive force against ICE officers since the beginning of the Trump administration, 32 have been cleared, and just one was referred for disciplinary action, Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner told the AP in July after being briefed by ICE officials.
