This month, ICE has been ramping up its purchases of tactical gear, guns and surveillance kits. On Tuesday, contract records show it spent $78,000 on a robot capable of opening doors, climbing stairs and firing off smoke bombs during house raids.
The deal is with Ottawa, Canada-based company Icor Technology, which was founded in 2005 and was acquired last year by public safety-focused Cadre Holdings for $38 million, after securing contracts with police departments and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and at least 40 other countries, according to local reports. Per the company’s website and promotional videos, its robot is dexterous enough with its rotating claw arm that it can latch onto door knobs and turn them, and is capable of traversing difficult obstacles like stairs. Its claw also comes with a wide-angle camera. Buyers can also choose to equip the device with “chemical grenades,” designed to stop targets seeing officers entering.
Along with purchases of AI-powered facial recognition and drones, the contracts have raised concerns about ICE’s spending on surveillance and arms that could be used to target the immigrant population.
“This is what happens when Congress writes ICE a blank check, they waste even more money on these Orwellian gadgets,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.
“The idea of human agents breaking down our doors is terrifying enough, but adding this army of robot ICE agents will only make a creepy nightmare even worse.”
ICE hadn’t provided comment at the time of publication. Icor declined to comment.
While federal contract records show the Icor machine is the most expensive robot ICE has bought, it’s not the first one. Most notably, ICE has bought devices from Recon Robotics, which makes small, two-wheeled devices that can be quickly deployed for surveillance inside tight spaces, including its flagship product the Throwbot. Last year, it also bought a ground robot from police tech giant Axon for $15,000. These robots are largely designed to be used in property raids where sending in a human agent is deemed overly risky.
Earlier this month, Forbes reported that the immigration agency had been buying fresh armor, drones and guns as it prepares for an imminent agent hiring surge, following purchases of surveillance tools known as Stingrays, which pose as mobile cell towers to locate target devices Much of that tech was being bought through an intermediary supplier called Atlantic Diving Supply (ADS).
Contract records show ICE continuing to buy from ADS this week, including a $515,000 order on Monday for some small unmanned aircraft systems. Though ADS has sold numerous models from $2 billion-valued Silicon Valley manufacturer Skydio, the records didn’t show which models ICE was buying.