CNN host Sara Sidner on Wednesday highlighted a disconcerting new notice regarding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which revealed that the agency plans to spend anywhere between $10 million and $20 million on electric shock gloves for its agents.
“Compliant Technologies makes the gloves, and in 2024, a distributor said the way the technology is used isn’t capable of causing injury, adding, ‘We usually get compliance within three seconds,’” Sidner said Wednesday while introducing the segment.
The “News Central” host continued, “This news comes as ICE agents are facing scrutiny over what critics are calling aggressive and dangerous tactics — and as the Trump administration is pushing for a quota to make 2,000 arrests per day.”
Acquisition of the “GLOVE,” or “Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter,” was revealed in a notice Monday from the Department of Homeland Security. Sidner discussed it with CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem, a former DHS assistant secretary for policy.
“When you turn it on, they’re going to get a voltage that’s described as sort of an intense bee sting,” Kayyem explained. “They’re not supposed to do it for longer than 15 seconds … and I will say that the devices have mostly been used … in confined situations — a jail.”
She said, “That may make sense because there’s really no freedom of movement. Go forward to ICE and where we are now? This is asking for intense trouble for the American public: ICE is not known for de-escalation; the rules of engagement for ICE are not understood.”
President Donald Trump last year launched mass deportations shortly after taking office and deployed thousands of federal immigration agents to several cities across the country, resulting in the fatal shootings of Minnesota residents Alex Pretti and Renée Good.
Despite former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem getting fired following her baseless claims that the victims had engaged in “domestic terrorism,” The New York Times reported last month that ICE leaders have been pushed to reach a quota of 2,000 daily arrests.
“And with this mandate from the White House of 2,000 arrests a day, you now have sort of issued ICE to sort of go around, touch people and zap them and say that they’re not compliant,” said Kayyem. “We know ICE — I’m going to be direct here — we know ICE lies.”
She warned, “And so this could be a real danger for the American public.”
Sidner noted most law enforcement agencies have banned or denied using formal arrest quotas, prompting Kayyem to argue that this ICE mandate of 2,000 daily arrests comes from Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — and is entirely “political.”
“What that means is that senior managers are then pushing that down to the operational level,” she said, adding that ICE agents “onboarded with less training, less support [and] fewer rules of engagement are now deployed to satisfy a number.”
Kayyem concluded, “So giving them a new tool is dangerous with this mandate.”