Have ICE purchases of armored vehicles or tactical drones increased since 2020?
Executive summary
Public reporting documents clear, high-profile ICE acquisitions of armored vehicles in 2025 and an expanding toolkit of surveillance and counterdrone-related technologies announced by advocates in 2026, and the broader market for drones and counter‑drone systems has grown markedly since 2020; however, available sources do not provide a comprehensive, year‑by‑year accounting that proves a sustained agency‑wide increase in armored‑vehicle or tactical‑drone purchases by ICE across 2020–2025 [1] [2] [3].
1. ICE’s recent armored‑vehicle buys: concrete, rapid and attention‑grabbing
Multiple outlets reported that ICE placed a rapid, multi‑million‑dollar order in late 2025 for 20 Roshel Senator emergency response tactical/armoured vehicles, a contract publicly visible in U.S. procurement records and covered by CBC, The Independent and Canadian papers, signaling a discrete increase in armored vehicle spending in that year [1] [4] [5]. These reports cite a roughly $7.2–$10 million contract for vehicles designed to resist heavy munitions and blast effects, and they emphasize the expedited 30‑day delivery timeline that helped Roshel win the rush order over several U.S. vendors who could not meet the timeframe [4] [6] [1]. That single procurement demonstrates a concrete post‑2020 purchase, but it is a snapshot rather than a longitudinal series.
2. Surveillance and “tactical” gear beyond hulking vehicles
Advocacy reporting from the Electronic Frontier Foundation documents ICE acquiring complex surveillance platforms—trucks outfitted with cell‑site simulators, sensor towers, and devices to harvest or unlock phones—illustrating an expansion of tactical, non‑lethal capabilities and mobile sensor systems in the years immediately prior to 2026 [2]. The EFF frames this as part of a broader “surveillance shopping spree,” and while it catalogs contracts and devices, it does not quantify historical purchase volumes back to 2020 in a way that would let analysts calculate a precise growth rate [2].
3. Broader drone market growth but sparse ICE‑specific data
Independent defense‑market reporting shows large, sustained growth in global and U.S. drone procurement since 2020, with forecasters and the Army planning massive buy programs in the mid‑2020s—evidence that suppliers, technology maturity, and demand conditions have shifted in favor of drones and counter‑drone systems [3] [7]. Defense and industry pieces also document how recognition of small‑UAV threats by 2020 spurred R&D and procurement for C‑UAV capabilities [8]. Those trends create an environment in which ICE could reasonably be expected to increase tactical‑drone or counter‑drone buys, but the sources in hand do not supply ICE procurement line items or quantities for drones across 2020–2025 to confirm that agency‑level increase.
4. What reporters and critics emphasize — and why that matters
Coverage of the Roshel sale and EFF’s catalogue both carry explicit political and advocacy frames: Canadian MPs and NGOs drew attention to the optics of supplying ICE given human‑rights critiques of the agency, and the EFF highlights civil‑liberties concerns about surveillance tech [9] [2]. These frames shape which procurements are surfaced in public reporting—urgent, controversial, or foreign‑sourced buys draw headlines—so the impression of an “increase” can be amplified by selective exposure even when systematic procurement data remain incomplete [9] [4]. Reporters cite procurement records for the armored vehicles, but there is no equivalent centralized public ledger in these sources giving a complete ICE timeline for drones or armored vehicles from 2020 onward.
5. Bottom line and evidentiary limits
The factual record in these sources establishes that ICE made notable armored‑vehicle purchases in 2025 (20 Roshel vehicles) and has acquired a range of mobile surveillance and related tactical technologies reported in 2026, and that the global drone market and U.S. military drone buys have expanded since 2020—factors that plausibly encourage more tactical drone and counter‑drone spending [1] [2] [3] [7] [8]. However, none of the provided reporting offers a comprehensive, agency‑level, year‑by‑year procurement dataset from 2020 to present, so it is not possible on available evidence to assert definitively that ICE’s total purchases of armored vehicles or tactical drones have increased as a continuous trend since 2020; the documentation supports discrete high‑profile increases and an environment conducive to more such buys, but not a quantified long‑term trajectory [4] [1] [2].