Claim:
In 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started stockpiling guided missile warheads, explosive components and chemical weapons.
Rating:
What’s True
ICE purchased chemical weapons such as pepper spray in 2025 — as it did in previous years.
What’s False
ICE was not “stockpiling” guided missile warheads as of this writing.
What’s Undetermined
One $61,000 purchase for “distraction devices” was categorized under the federal code for “guided missile warheads and explosive components.” Evidence suggested someone likely made an error, but ICE did not confirm that on the record. It’s unclear what, exactly, ICE purchased under that specific contract.
In mid-October 2025, a rumor spread online that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bought “chemical weapons, guided missile warheads and explosive components” amid the agency’s budget windfall under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The claim circulated on Facebook, Bluesky and Reddit. It appeared to originate from a progressive newsletter called Popular Information, which news outlets such as The Daily Beast cited in their own reports about the claim.
ICE is stockpiling arms, including chemical weapons, guided missile warheads and explosive components. The spending dwarfs anything we’ve ever seen in the agency – a 700% increase. The President is building an army to attack his own country.
— Senator Chris Larson (@senchrislarson.bsky.social) October 21, 2025 at 7:45 AM
While this allegation appeared true at face value, a closer look revealed several discrepancies.
A federal procurement document indicates ICE did, in fact, purchase materials that someone categorized as “guided missile warheads and explosive components” in September 2025. However, based on the rest of that document’s contents, the above categorization did not accurately describe the contents of the purchase.
The contract described the products purchased as “distraction devices” that came from a company that does not make guided missile warheads. It was unclear as of this writing what, exactly, ICE bought under that procurement document, but the information available suggests that the agency did not buy a guided missile warhead. It is possible that the item could be an “explosive component” but it appears more likely that someone made a categorization error, as Wired first reported.
ICE also has purchased items defined as “chemical weapons” under federal government procurement codes. The government defines items such as flamethrowers and smoke grenades as chemical weapons. ICE has been purchasing items defined as chemical weapons since at least 2005.
As such, we rate this claim a mixture of truth, falsehood and undetermined information.
ICE directed an inquiry about what, exactly, the agency purchased to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, said via email: “Allegations ICE is buying guided missile components are FALSE.”
“ICE buying its law enforcement officers guns and non-lethal resources is a non-story. It should come as no surprise that we purchase and acquire firearms for law enforcement—especially amid the increased onboarding of 11,000 agents thanks to President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill,” McLaughlin said, referring to the tax and budget legislation package Trump signed into law in July.
ICE probably didn’t buy ‘guided missile warheads’
A search for “guided missile warheads” purchased by ICE in 2025 returned only one result in the official federal procurement database: a $61,218.82 purchase for “multiple distraction devices to support law enforcement operations and ICE- Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs.”
“Guided missile warheads and explosive components” is a category used by the federal government under product code 1336 to describe everything from rocket engines to “Propellant Chemicals encased in consumable containers” (see Page 97). Technically, the latter descriptor could mean products like smoke bombs or tear gas — even though those items would presumably be more accurately categorized under other codes, like 1330 for grenades or 1365 for military chemical agents. (Notably, both of those codes are numerically close to 1336, making it easy for someone to accidentally input the wrong code.)
Aside from product codes, the government also uses a North American Industry Classification System code on procurement documents. The NAICS code indicates what industry the product is from — and ICE tagged the distraction devices as “small arms, ordnance or ordnance accessories.” That tag could describe rifles, tanks, cannons and other forms of artillery, according to the classification system.
Here’s the document in full:
On the procurement document, ICE listed Quantico Tactical, a company that supplies equipment to the military and federal agencies, as the business from which ICE purchased the products. David Hensley, founder, owner and CEO of Quantico Tactical, said in an email that the categorization in question “appears to be an error.”
“Quantico Tactical does not sell, and I suspect that [Customs and Border Protection and] ICE does not purchase, ‘Guided Missile Warheads,'” Hensley said. “The rest of the document is essentially correct and stands on its own.”
Hensley declined to answer questions about what, exactly, ICE bought, citing “confidential business information” that he could not share for “competitive reasons.” However, he reiterated that the contract’s use of the phrase “distraction devices” accurately describes what ICE bought from his company. The products listed on Quantico Tactical’s website include guns, knives, weapon accessories, armor and strobe lights.
ICE has long bought chemical weapons
It is true that ICE purchased “chemical weapons.” A search for “chemical weapons” on the procurement database returned five contracts matching that description during Trump’s second term, totaling $417,246.38 as of this writing. Here’s an example of one of those contracts:
However, the implication that ICE began stockpiling chemical weapons under Trump’s second term omits needed context. ICE has been purchasing “chemical weapons” since at least 2005, based on the same database. Looking up ICE purchases of “chemical weapons” returned 93 contracts as of this writing. In fact, ICE approved two of the seven total contracts signed in early 2025 under former President Joe Biden’s administration, amounting to $182,660.30.
Descriptions of the chemical weapons ICE purchased under Trump’s included “chemical munitions,” “detonation distraction device” and “OC canisters” — in other words, pepper spray. Previous orders for chemical weapons also included similar descriptions. See, for example, a $70,356.48 purchase from Quantico Tactical for “CHEMICAL MUNITIONS TO SUPPORT Law Enforcement Training Activities” in 2022.
The federal government defines code 1040, for “chemical weapons and other equipment,” as products such as smoke grenades and flame throwers (see Page 93). Weapons such as smoke grenades have real and detrimental health effects, but there was no evidence ICE has purchased severely lethal chemical warfare weapons like napalm.
The bottom line
There’s no question that ICE has unprecedented spending power under the second Trump administration — and that the agency has made headlines for its use of tear gas and other chemical munitions in 2025. Snopes previously confirmed that an image of ICE spraying a pastor with “pepper pellets” in Chicago was real. One Portland protester in an inflatable frog costume went viral after a federal agent pepper-sprayed his air vent outside an ICE facility.
Many people fear ICE tactics have grown more violent in 2025, as NPR reported in October 2025. However, activists and human-rights experts have long criticized ICE’s use of force. For example, a Daily News article from 2007 reported that a group was “denouncing the excessive force and flagrant violation of rights that have become trademarks of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.” Nearly 15 years later, a 2021 Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General’s report found ICE officials fired pepper spray and chemical agents from the ceiling of a detention center to stop a peaceful protest.
As such, rumors that ICE started stockpiling “guided missile warheads” in 2025 may be based in real fears about the agency’s use of force, and it is true that ICE has chemical weapons and other artillery at its disposal — as it has for decades. However, in this case, a closer look at what ICE actually purchased reveals that human error likely led to sensationalized headlines.
Sources
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