The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving forward with a multi-million-dollar purchase of gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks to people they're trying to detain, despite pushback from members of Congress.
The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, has awarded a $16.7 million contract on Aug. 28 to buy 6,000 pairs of electric shock gloves from the Kentucky-based company Compliant Technologies.
The device known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, appears like a normal pair of patrol gloves until officers press a button to activate an electrical mode. They have to make contact with someone’s skin to give a shock, and the company described the gloves as a “conductive distraction and de-escalation” device.
But Hawai‘i lawmakers, immigration attorneys and advocates are raising concerns about their potential use, calling it unnecessary and cruel.
U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda said she and other members in Congress were unaware of this planned purchase and thought ICE was trying to circumvent lawmakers. She added that Congress was in recess when DHS announced its plans to buy thousands of gloves for its ICE officers.
“They are intentionally trying to be deceptive. They are intentionally trying to fast-track this process to get these gloves and to put them into the hands of ICE agents,” she said.
It's unclear whether Hawai‘i's ICE officers will receive the gloves. ICE didn't respond to questions about whether the gloves will be deployed in Hawai‘i.
DHS emailed a statement saying ICE is evaluating new tools and equipment for its officers and that any technology must comply with its use-of-force policies. The agency says officers receive ongoing training in de-escalation and the use of force.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, ICE is targeting the worst of the worst. Since Day One, ICE law enforcement has been delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists,” a DHS spokesperson said in an email.
‘Cartoonishly evil’
In recent years, the electric shock gloves have already been used by officers in jails and police departments. But critics have pointed to the dangers of the device, citing the death of a 43-year-old man who died after allegedly being shocked 40 times by officers using the gloves and a Taser.
States like California are already fast-tracking a measure to ban ICE from using electric shock gloves
Hawai‘i Sen. Karl Rhoads, who is retiring, said the gloves could be a topic for state lawmakers next year, although the Legislature adjourned in May, months before DHS announced its planned purchase.
Rhoads said the concern isn't just about the technology but how federal immigration officers might use it.
“Just just cartoonishly evil,” Rhoads said, adding that officers already have tasers.
Leilani Stacy, an immigration rights' attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union in Hawai‘i, said these devices could be problematic, expressing concerns over excessive force, and lack of justification for using the devices on non-violent people.
“Most of the conduct that ICE is involved in right now is targeting folks who really only have civil immigration compliance issues, so they haven’t necessarily committed any crime,” she said. “We know that a majority of people who are being locked up right now have committed no crime, or maybe they have minor infractions.”
She also raised concerns about the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and has been cited in cases of excessive force.
“What's most alarming about just thinking about the use of these gloves is that in a common interaction that hopefully is not escalating that much at all, it kind of gives ICE the ability to act without thinking first,” she said. “Even if this person is not really a threat or a danger to anyone around them. They haven't committed any crime. ICE perhaps will already have these gloves on during that interaction. Something could go wrong so quickly.”
Whether or not the gloves are coming to Hawai‘i has caused alarm among Hawai‘i immigration advocates like Liza Ryan Gill, the co-executive director of the Hawai‘i Coalition for Immigrant Rights.
“It feels like the intention is to make them (ICE officers) look more menacing and threatening,” she said.
She's worried that ICE agents may not know the medical condition of the people they’re trying to detain.
“At the same time, what kind of training have these officers received to be able to use this force?” she said.
She said her organization will be meeting with immigrant communities in October and November to inform them of their rights.
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