Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law banning local, state and federal officers from using electric-shock gloves, a direct response to ICE's push to give agents a non-lethal compliance tool.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law on Tuesday that bars local, state and federal law enforcement officers from using gloves capable of delivering electric shocks, a direct response to the Trump administration's push to give federal immigration agents a new non-lethal tool. The ban takes effect next year and remains in force through 2030.
The measure also orders the California Department of Justice to study how shock gloves perform in the field and report back to state lawmakers by 2029. Newsom framed the law as a check on federal enforcement, saying the state is moving to tighten oversight of immigration operations inside its borders.
The timing leaves little doubt about the target. Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded a contract worth nearly $17 million last month to buy 6,000 pairs of shock gloves, part of an effort to hand officers a compliance tool that stops well short of deadly force when a subject turns combative.
Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins, the Democrat who carried the legislation, said the federal purchase was the catalyst. She described the law as a way to pause deployment of the devices while the state weighs their risks.
"There's a lot of unrest and a lot of uncertainty," Sharp-Collins said. "A lot of people are scared." She pointed to a 2024 case in which a Kentucky family alleged that a man died after being tased and shocked with the gloves dozens of times in law enforcement custody.
California has tried this before and lost. A federal judge blocked the state's first-of-its-kind ban on face coverings for federal officers, ruling it too selective because it applied to local and federal police while exempting state officers. A federal judge has already blocked Virginia's anti-ICE law on similar grounds, ruling that states cannot handcuff federal agents doing federal work.
Lawmakers answered the California ruling with a broader bill that covers all officers, and Newsom signed it. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who wrote last year's mask ban, also authored the expansion.
Kevin Johnson, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis School of Law, expects courts to strike down both measures. He said the laws are well-intentioned but collide with the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes federal law as supreme over conflicting state law.
"The state has very limited, if any, powers in dictating to the federal government how its officers are armed," Johnson said.
Not every Democrat in the state lined up behind the ban. Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, a former state lawmaker, called it a mistake that strips officers of a middle-ground option in violent encounters.
"When the federal government does something, the state legislature wants to ban it," Cooper said. "They're making our job harder."
Shock gloves are designed to gain compliance from resisting suspects by delivering a jolt through the hand, letting an officer avoid a baton, a Taser or a firearm in close-quarters situations. Federal officials have described the purchase as a safety upgrade for agents who routinely make physical arrests.
The shock-glove ban is the latest piece of a wider campaign. California lawmakers passed at least two dozen bills this year aimed at expanding immigrant rights, limiting cooperation with federal agents and tightening rules on detention facilities.
That pattern is not confined to California. Legislatures in 17 Democratic-led states have passed more than 100 measures this year to expand protections for immigrants, with the most common goal being to restrict cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
The Trump administration has pressed ahead regardless, expanding interior enforcement and equipping its agents with the tools they say the job requires. Federal officials argue that states cannot veto how Washington arms and trains its own officers.
The fight is almost certain to end up in federal court, where the supremacy clause has repeatedly shielded federal officers from state restrictions. If the courts follow the pattern set by the Virginia and face-covering rulings, the shock-glove ban will face the same fate.
For now, the law stands as another marker of how far Democratic-led states are willing to go to slow federal immigration enforcement, and how quickly the Trump administration is willing to test them. The measure takes effect next year, setting up a fresh courtroom clash over who controls the equipment on an officer's hands.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law banning local, state and federal officers from using electric-shock gloves, a direct response to ICE's push to give agents a non-lethal compliance tool.
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