DHS is preparing to give ICE officers a disturbing new tool: gloves capable of delivering painful electrical shocks directly through an officer’s touch. ICE reportedly plans to spend as much as $20 million purchasing thousands of the devices, known as G.L.O.V.E. — Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters. The gloves look and function like ordinary patrol gloves until an officer activates their electrical mode and places them against a person’s skin. The manufacturer says the resulting pain can force a person into compliance within seconds.
Calling this a de-escalation device does not make it humane. Using electricity to inflict pain for the purpose of forcing obedience is an extraordinary use of government power. Even the manufacturer warns that the gloves should not be used as punishment, against someone who is merely verbally defiant, or against vulnerable people such as children, pregnant women, elderly people, and people with disabilities. Yet the device is particularly troubling because an officer can activate it almost invisibly. Unlike a baton strike, pepper spray, or a deployed Taser, an electrical shock delivered during physical contact may be difficult for witnesses or cameras to recognize. That creates obvious problems of accountability.
The use of electric-shock gloves is not entirely new in American law enforcement. But only a handful of local police departments, sheriff’s offices, and correctional facilities have purchased or used similar devices. ICE’s planned acquisition is alarming because of the scale of the proposed rollout and the context in which the gloves could be used — civil immigration enforcement involving thousands of people who may pose no danger to officers or the public.
According to reporting about ICE’s plans, the agency is considering spending millions of dollars to acquire thousands of G.L.O.V.E. devices, which allow an officer to deliver an electrical shock simply by touching a person while the device is activated. That could represent a significant expansion of this technology beyond the relatively limited use it has had in some local law-enforcement agencies. The concern is not simply that the technology exists, but that it could become a routine compliance tool during immigration arrests, detention, transportation, and other encounters with ICE.
The constitutional concerns are serious. When ICE agents arrest or seize a person, the Fourth Amendment prohibits objectively unreasonable and excessive force. Under Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), courts consider factors such as the seriousness of the suspected offense, whether the person poses an immediate safety threat, and whether the person is actively resisting or trying to flee. The Supreme Court reaffirmed as recently as 2026 that the use of painful force in response to mere passive resistance can support a finding that an officer violated the Fourth Amendment. Zorn v. Linton, No. 25-297 (U.S. Mar. 23, 2026).
That distinction is especially important in immigration enforcement. Being undocumented is not a license for the government to physically punish someone. Immigration enforcement is overwhelmingly civil in nature. An individual who is standing still, questioning an officer, refusing to answer questions, crying, frightened, or otherwise failing to immediately obey every command does not automatically present the type of threat that constitutionally justifies deliberately inflicting electrical pain. If these gloves are used simply to obtain faster compliance from someone who poses no immediate danger, there is a powerful argument that the force is excessive and unconstitutional.
There are also serious Fifth Amendment due process concerns once a person is in federal immigration custody. Immigration detainees are civil detainees, not prisoners serving criminal sentences. The Constitution does not permit the government to punish detainees simply because they are being held. Supreme Court precedent recognizes that people who have not been convicted cannot be subjected to force that amounts to punishment. That makes the manufacturer’s own warning — that these gloves must not be used as punishment — particularly significant.
And this is why describing the devices merely as less-lethal misses the point. The Constitution does not ask only whether government force kills someone. It asks whether that force was justified. An electrical shock administered to stop someone who is violently attacking an officer presents a very different constitutional question from shocking a frightened immigrant because he or she will not move quickly enough, will not get out of a vehicle, refuses to stop asking questions, or passively resists being taken away.
ICE officers perform a legitimate law-enforcement function, and officers have the right to protect themselves when they face genuine threats. But that does not give any federal agency unlimited authority to cause pain. The government should be moving toward transparency, accountability, body-camera documentation, meaningful supervision, and genuine de-escalation — not quietly turning an officer’s hand into an electrical weapon.
Electric shock gloves are particularly dangerous because they make the infliction of pain easy, immediate, and potentially difficult to detect. That combination demands extraordinary safeguards. At minimum, every activation should be automatically recorded, every use should require a written use-of-force report, body-camera footage should be preserved, and officers should face meaningful consequences for using the devices against people who are compliant, passively resistant, already restrained, medically vulnerable, or simply verbally protesting their treatment.
America’s immigration laws may authorize the government to arrest, detain, and remove certain noncitizens. They do not authorize cruelty. They do not erase constitutional protections. And they certainly should not turn electrical pain into a routine tool for making immigrants obey. Shepelsky Law Group stands against ICE’s use of cruel and dangerous devices when dealing with the public. We urge the public to raise objections to this by contacting your local Congress representative and voicing your concerns.
To legalize in the U.S. and start the process today, call Shepelsky Law Group at Tel: (718)769-6352 or book your consultation at our website at: https://shepelskylaw.cliogrow.com/book