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Welcome to the free pilot run of Immigration Daybook. Today we’re using our combination of crusty editor (me!) and powerful technology to background a company that featured in the headlines the past few days and found a fascinating story we hope someone takes further. Produced in part with AI, all mistakes are my own. —David
ICE moves to equip officers with electric-shock gloves
ICE is moving to buy wearable electric-shock devices for the officers who carry out immigration arrests. Adding a new force option to the equipment officers carry would require the agency to settle when the devices may be deployed, what force standards govern them, how officers are trained and who reviews each use. Associated Press, Newsweek
404 Media obtained the manual for the gloves, which details how the devices are meant to be used in the field. 404 Media
Spanish-language coverage also digs into how the agency intends the gloves to be used, placing the purchase inside a broader pattern of increasingly aggressive tactics during immigration operations. El País, El Mañana de Nuevo Laredo
The gloves were recently demonstrated in a live TV stunt in Argentina. The security minister of Córdoba tested the glove on himself and fell to his knees. “You really can’t stand it,” he said afterwards. El Doce TV
Go deeper on Compliant Technologies, the company that makes the gloves
We got curious about the company, Compliant Technologies LLC, their contract, and their product, so we used our "computers and elbow grease" approach to look into it:
The contract: It appears the agency intends to buy them without competition. A DHS procurement notice published Aug. 11, 2026 describes a sole-source award for the G.L.O.V.E. device, with delivery by March 2027. The paper trail runs through ICE's Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs at Fort Benning, Georgia, which posted a sources-sought notice for "conductive energy weapons" dated Feb. 17, 2026 and named the ICE contacts as Rob Roberts and Daniel Correia.
The company: The vendor is a veteran-owned firm in Lexington, Kentucky that self-describes as an "Exclusive Distributor" for conducted electrical weapon technology. We could find no prior federal contracts for the company in USASpending.gov records — the only federal assistance we located was a $1,000 COVID-era EIDL advance in 2020.
The product: The AP described the gloves as "manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky," but the company's HigherGov filing lists it as "Exclusive Distributor" and the G.L.O.V.E.'s first-named inventor is a Chinese national who supplies police equipment to China's Ministry of Public Security, according to U.S. Patent 12,326,321 B2 ("Glove Adapted to Dispense Pulsed Electric Current to a Human's Skin"), and the co-inventor is Compliant founder Jeff Niklaus.
According to our research, Jiang is senior engineer and general manager of Shenzhen Senxunda Electronic Technology Co. Ltd. (深圳市森讯达电子技术有限公司). A profile on a Chinese police equipment portal identifies the firm as a Ministry of Public Security–approved supplier whose products serve China's "national stability and counter-terrorism front." The Senxunda catalog maps cleanly onto Compliant Technologies' line: "police arrest glove" to the G.L.O.V.E. "acoustic-optical riot dispersal shield" to the sound shield, "electronic action restraint" to the E-Band and E-Vest.
Niklaus told the story himself in June 2024, on an alt-media podcast episode hosted by Sarah Westall. He named the inventor as a Chinese man who had been a Shaolin monk before working for law enforcement "like the DEA."
The expert: The Associated Press interviewed Dr. John Peters, president of the Institute for Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, who said the glove felt "like a bee sting." Peters is listed on Compliant Technologies' own references page as its "Use of Force Expert." The AP did not mention the connection.
Peters' résumé compounds the potential conflicts of interest. He served as chairman of the board and vice president at Reliapon Police Products, a non-lethal weapons manufacturer, according to his expert witness profile. His CV lists "statistical data analysis of TASER® voluntary self-exposures and field uses." His institute promotes "excited delirium," a diagnosis not approved by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, or the World Health Organization, and not included in the DSM — and called a "sham" by civil rights groups in a Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review analysis.
Cities and counties choose opposing paths on ICE cooperation
Nixa, Missouri, approved an agreement to train its police officers to carry out certain federal immigration functions during ordinary patrol work, and a county government in Texas is moving the same direction. Under these arrangements, local officers get federal training and access to federal resources when immigration questions come up during a traffic stop or arrest. In Liberty County, Texas, commissioners signed off for one precinct, with others expected to follow. KY3,
Recovered Factory context: According to state reports processed by Recovered Factory, in 2025, Nixa, Missouri rarely stopped Hispanic drivers, but searched and arrested them at significantly higher rates than other races, though the small number of encounters means these are fairly volatile figures. In keeping with a statewide pattern where Hispanic drivers are searched the most while found with contraband the least, Nixa’s searches of Hispanic drivers reportedly yielded no contraband at all. Missouri Vehicle Stops
Other places are pulling the other way: Mankato, Minnesota, made its immigration-enforcement limits permanent. Alachua County, Florida, a state where 287(g) participation is mandatory, passed a resolution warning that discriminatory enforcement erodes public trust in police. And Massachusetts restricted some state and local cooperation while barring new deputization agreements. These measures can limit what local governments do to assist ICE, but state and city law cannot stop federal officers from operating in most public places. KEYC, CommonWealth Beacon
Recovered Factory runs 287(g) Watch, a site that tracks these agreements, but ICE has not updated their 287(g) roster data in almost four weeks. We’ve emailed them multiple times now but have yet to hear back.
Expanded detention and removal powers strain the courts
ICE's expanded mandatory-detention policy denies bond hearings to people arrested inside the country and the resulting wave of habeas corpus petitions is piling up in federal court. Judges have repeatedly found against the policy, while the litigation itself consumes court staff and judicial time; transfers between distant detention sites can cut people off from their lawyers and families in the middle of those cases. The New Republic, American Bazaar
The government has also activated a long-dormant specialized removal process, even as most people in immigration proceedings have no lawyer because there is no right to appointed counsel in immigration court. A New York City worker whose path ran from ICE detention through a removal order to an eventual grant of asylum shows how custody decisions and the merits of a case can travel on separate, contradictory tracks. Human Rights Watch, Associated Press, Gothamist
UpcomingNext four weeks
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AUG
24
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DHS wants to raise the cost of applying for US citizenship (Form N-400) from $760 to $1,330 on paper, and $710 to $1,280 online, with the appeal of a denial (Form N-336) going from $830 to $1,475. Reduced fees and fee waivers for naturalisation would end. Comments close Aug. 24 and implementation likely soon after.
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25
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Adults who want to take custody of an immigrant child who arrived without a parent or guardian would have to show more documents — proof of identity, proof of income, and information for background checks — before the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) releases the child to them. Comments on the proposed rule are open until August 25, 2026.
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28
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The comment deadline closes on the DHS rule requiring foreign nationals in the US to register with the government and give fingerprints (Form G-325R). DHS is asking whether more immigration filings should count as registration on their own, and whether to change biometrics rules for some travelers; further rulemaking may follow.
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31
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DHS is expected to publish a proposed rule on getting a green card by investing in a US business (EB-5). It would change how Regional Centers — entities approved to pool investor money into projects — are designated and terminated, how long money must stay invested, USCIS audit powers, protections for good-faith investors, and automatic revocation of petitions.
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Employers using the extra H-2B visas Congress allows for seasonal, non-farm jobs must file a sworn statement (attestation) that they meet the added conditions. The Labor Department is asking the White House budget office (OMB) to renew that collection — the requirement itself is not changing — and comments are open until August 31, 2026.
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9
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Starting September 9, the heaviest users of H-1B and L-1 visas owe a federal fee on every extension petition, not just when they hire someone new or take on another company's worker. The fee — $4,000 per H-1B petition, $4,500 per L-1 — applies to companies with 50 or more U.S. employees when more than half of them are on H-1B or L-1 visas. DHS says its old reading of a 2015 law wrongly let same-employer extensions skip the fee; this rule closes that gap through September 2027.
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Missing something, or spotted an error? Reply to this email — corrections run at the foot of the next issue.
Around the system
- DHS abandoned plans to convert a warehouse complex in Socorro, Texas, near El Paso, into a major ICE detention and training center, and is transferring the properties for sale. The reversal follows sustained local opposition and questions about water, wastewater and emergency-response capacity. El Paso Matters, Noticias 48
- Scrutiny of Delaney Hall, the immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, widened this week through a state civil-rights investigation, fresh reporting on conditions inside and renewed political demands that it close. News 12 New Jersey
- Cases in federal court are testing how far the government can go in seizing and forensically searching travelers' phones and laptops at the border: one judge found a phone search lacked the individualized suspicion required, and another ordered limited discovery into how a journalist's devices were handled. The American Conservative,
- New guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services broadens when officers may suggest DNA evidence in family-based immigration cases, raising the practical question of when families will feel pressed into genetic testing to prove a relationship. Uno TV
- A new economic model estimates how lifting the cap on green cards for workers in science, technology, engineering and math fields would affect workers, employers and the wider economy. Penn Wharton Budget Model
Note: The "upcoming" August 24 item about application fees originally included an accurate but confusing sentence about comment dates and was re-written for clarity going forward.
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