Shocker: Army Finds Electric Gloves Used By ICE Are Incredibly Painful

An Army study into electric gloves that could be deployed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) found that they caused participants significant pain and fear. 

According to AP, ICE officials knew the findings from the Army’s study before they spent over $16 million to buy 6,000 gloves for their agents in August. The gloves were tested on Army employees in 2024 at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. The participants were mostly men of large, muscular stature, and the gloves had a drastic impact on them. After only seconds of being touched by the electric gloves, the participants suffered “fatigue, soreness and excessive apprehensiveness to being shocked again,” the study found.

“After experiencing the effects of the GLOVE, … participants stated just seeing the GLOVE was enough to make them want to comply,” the authors wrote.

So, yeah, it’s kind of alarming that a device that’s capable of crippling actual soldiers is being deployed on American streets and schools. Oh yes, folks, an Omaha school district came under controversy over the summer after it was discovered the gloves had been used on students in several different incidents. 

ICE has called the gloves “distraction and de-escalation devices” that are safer than other nonlethal options. 

Over the last year, we’ve seen that ICE’s idea of “de-escalation” is nothing if not brutal. There have been countless reports of ICE shooting both citizens and immigrants, not to mention the number of questionable injuries sustained by people who are being detained by ICE. 

Should you, for some reason, enjoy the taste of boot and think that the gloves aren’t all that bad because they’ll be used on undocumented folks, need I remind you that this is the same group that shot Alex Pretti several times in the back while he was on the ground. The same group that shot Marimar Martinez several times while she was unarmed in her car. The same group that fatally shot Renee Good while she was driving away from an ICE roadblock. Recent history shows that these gloves aren’t just going to be used on undocumented people.

“GLOVE provides a boost in confidence to smaller or less trained members,” the study found. Given the Army’s report and ICE’s lax hiring standards, it’s safe to assume that ICE agents will find a way to abuse the electric gloves. 

“The military assessment in ICE’s own files shows that these gloves can cause ‘intense pain’ and force compliance. It does not establish that they are safe,” Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, told AP. “Everyone should be alarmed that ICE is preparing to deploy a tool designed to inflict, at best, intense pain, without showing that it is safe for the people who will be subjected to it.”

California took a proactive approach, passing a bill banning the use of the electric gloves earlier last month. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and 15 other Democratic senators sent a letter to Homeland Security in August calling for them to cancel the GLOVE contract or explain how they won’t be abused. 

“Without ICE’s responses to legitimate questions from 16 United States Senators, the American public is being left in the dark about how these electric shock gloves are being deployed and what, if any, training the agents who use them have received,” she said.

I love that the government is spending millions of dollars to brutalize its citizens into compliance instead of properly funding food assistance programs. Truly the land of the free, folks. 

SEE ALSO:

Electric Shock Gloves Were Used On Students In Omaha Schools [Op-Ed]

California Legislature Passes Bill Banning Electric Gloves

Homeland Security Spending Millions On Electric Gloves For ICE