ICE officers and agents will be getting body cameras to add to their uniform today, according to a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security.
Officers and agents will be mandated to bring them into the field when they conduct any operations by the end of this month.
The change comes after several high profile deadly shootings by officers who were not wearing cameras.
Under the Biden administration, a pilot program was set where 20 percent of officers had them.
However, President Trump undid that mandate that would have eventually required all federal agents in any agency to wear cameras.
This summer, DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin said they needed to change course and bring the cameras back.
This new step towards more transparency comes at the same time as new reporting about ICE giving their officers “electric gloves.”
According to a notice published by DHS, the department plans to spend up to 20 million dollars to buy thousands of gloves.
The company who makes the gloves says they work like normal gloves, until officers press a switch to activate their “electric mode.”
When touching someone’s skin, the gloves deliver a pain stimulus that would help an officer gain compliance within seconds from someone who’s being combative.
Civil rights advocates say they’re already concerned with ICE agents’ and officers’ tactics, and use of force.
Across the nation over the next few weeks, ICE officers and agents will adjust to their new body camera policy.
This new federal policy comes at the same time as new calls for transparency in Los Angeles.
During a police oversight meeting on Tuesday regarding the Los Angeles Police Department’s response during anti-ice protests, NBC4 Investigates learned that LA taxpayers spent more than $17 million on the police response, paying officers and on overtime for crowd control.
The report broke down the weapons officers used and how mass arrests could have been handled.
However, many members of the public were critical that the review didn’t show the full picture of what happened.
Missing from this new report were numerous complaints about officers using physical force on protestors who weren’t violent, and on journalists.