The Associated Press reported on August 11, 2026 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to purchase up to $20 million worth of electric shock gloves for its agents, providing what is arguably the largest, worst trained and most aggressive law enforcement agency in U.S. history with a tool that can inflict tremendous pain without leaving physical marks — such as puncture injuries, burns, scars or bruises — that could leave its agents susceptible to lawsuits.
The gloves are manufactured by a Kentucky company called Compliant Technologies LLC and utilize up to 380 volts — equivalent to the power required to operate an industrial pump, commercial air compressor, large electric motor or commercial elevator.
The gloves only work on bare skin.
Human rights organizations raise alarms
Amnesty International says the gloves can be “readily misused for torture,” and the Center for Victims of Torture argues that the devices constitute “inherently abusive equipment that facilitates torture.”
Abuses, torture and even death at the hands of ICE agents — both inside and outside detention facilities — have been well documented. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued a study in 2024 titled “Endless Nightmare: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention” that documents noncompliance with directives meant to rein in bad behavior by officers, and the misuse of solitary confinement on detainees to an extent that constitutes torture. PHR wrote that,
“In the last five years alone, ICE has placed people in solitary confinement over 14,000 times, with an average duration of 27 days, well exceeding the 15-day threshold that United Nations (UN) human rights experts have found constitutes torture.”
A December 8, 2025 report by the ACLU titled “Detained Immigrants Detail Physical Abuse and Inhumane Conditions at Largest Immigration Detention Center in the U.S.,” found people detained in Fort Bliss, the country’s largest ICE detention facility, endured beatings, crushing of their testicles, saw officers forcing fingers into people’s ears and reported severe violent assaults and sexual abuse being committed by officers. (pdf)
Trump’s “Border Czar,” Tom Homan, defended use of the gloves as a way to avoid using deadly force on victims.
The ACLU says “The public should have no confidence that ICE officers will use this device appropriately.”
Does our current an future AG plan to sue and say “Not In Colorado?”