The Biden administrations Department of Homeland Security is moving ahead with plans to equip immigration agents with electric shock gloves, and the professional outrage machine on the left is already in full swing.
According to RedState, a newly released DHS acquisition planning document indicates the agency is preparing to spend up to $20 million on the high-tech gloves, which are designed to deliver a controlled electrical jolt to help subdue individuals resisting detention. The equipment would be used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers during immigration raids and arrests, adding another non-lethal option to their use-of-force toolkit at a time when border encounters and violent resistance remain serious concerns.
Predictably, Democrats and their activist allies have seized on the proposal, denouncing the gloves as torture and inhumane while continuing to prioritize the comfort of illegal immigrants over the safety of American citizens and law enforcement officers. These are, after all, the same voices that routinely fall silent when Americans are assaulted or killed by criminal illegal aliens, yet spring into action the moment a serious enforcement measure is proposed.
Some on the left are now using the gloves as a pretext to attack ICE and Border Patrol funding altogether, despite years of escalating border chaos and cartel-driven crime. One progressive critic raged, Since Trump took office, Republicans have given DHS over $240 BILLION including $113.5 billion for ICE and this is how it's being spent. Electric shock gloves. This is torture. No more money for ICE or Border Patrol. Instead, we need to dismantle and overhaul them..
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee have reportedly escalated the campaign by pressing DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to scrap the procurement entirely. In a letter, they urged him to halt this procurement before more innocent lives are lost, framing a defensive tool for officers as a looming threat to the public rather than a means of preventing escalation.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) led the charge, accusing ICE of systemic abuse under the previous administration. Under the Trump administration, ICE has repeatedly violated the law and disregarded its own policies on the use of force, shooting 23 people and killing 6, including 3 U.S. citizens. Many of these individuals were not the target of immigration enforcement operations and, in some cases, they were simply exercising their First Amendment rights. As we have raised in previous letters, DHS personnel have also permanently injured and nearly killed innocent people with so-called less-lethal weapons, not unlike the G.L.O.V.E., Thompson wrote, invoking past incidents to argue against the new technology.
He continued by alleging a broader pattern of misconduct. Indeed, ICE has demonstrated a pattern of misusing tools and devices, including rubber bullets and chemical sprays, in manners that put the public at greater risk of serious injury or death.
While Democrats clutch their pearls, the company behind the technology, Compliant Technologies, describes the gloves as a controlled, targeted, and comparatively mild tool that functions like standard duty gloves until activated. The device only delivers an electrical stimulus when the officer flips a switch, giving agents a way to gain compliance without resorting to more severe force options such as batons, takedowns, or firearms.
Experts studying the gloves emphasize their potential to reduce injuries on both sides of an encounter. Its immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee sting, said John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, which is studying how law enforcement is currently using the gloves. If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool.
The Omaha Police Department has already deployed the gloves to school resource officers and publicly demonstrated how they work in local schools. Their experience suggests that, far from being an instrument of torture, the gloves can serve as a measured, non-lethal option in tense situations where officers must quickly gain control without causing serious harm.
If the technology is considered appropriate for dealing with unruly teenagers in a school setting, it is difficult to argue that it is somehow beyond the pale when used on adults violently resisting lawful arrest after entering the country illegally. Rather than sabotaging enforcement in the name of ideological purity, DHS should be expanding access to such tools, buying them by the truckload, and giving frontline officers every reasonable means to do their jobs safely and effectively.
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