Your Tax Monies at Work: ICE Expenditures Raise Concerns

ICE is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on new gadgets with safety concerns: 

-- ICE awarded a $16.7 million contract to buy 6,000 pairs of electric shock gloves (called the “G.L.O.V.E.” or “Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter) from Kentucky-based firm Compliant Technologies LLC. The gloves have already been linked to at least one death in a county jail last year.  

-- The agency is also planning to spend up to $2 million on robot dogs from Boston Dynamics, according to a federal procurement notice, which says the robots will “improve officer safety” and assist operations in “dangerous, confined, unstable, or difficult-to-access areas.”

-- In addition, a federal contract to purchase shows ICE is planning to spend $29,286 on “The Grappler” — a device that can slow and stops fleeing cars, made by Stock Enterprises, LLC — after agents fatally shot drivers in Maine and Texas earlier this summer.