More than 300 Boston Dynamics employees signed a petition against selling four Spot robot dogs to ICE. Leadership says the deal stands.
Hundreds of people who build Boston Dynamics' robot dogs are asking the company to cancel a sale to US immigration enforcement. More than 300 employees signed a petition against a $1.3 million contract to supply four modified Spot robots to ICE. Company leaders have said they are standing by the deal.
The contract went through Radeco, a Connecticut company that modified the Spot robots and sells them as a platform called Cerberus. The contract says the robots would detect radiation, toxic gas leaks and explosive threats in cities or disaster zones. They carry an oxygen sensor, a 30-times zoom camera, 360-degree cameras and thermal imaging. An optional arm can open doors.
The contract also says the robots can run repeatable missions on their own with minimal human intervention. ICE says the purchase supports work against cross-border tunnels and smuggling networks. Boston Dynamics would mainly provide technical support, according to The Boston Globe.
About half of the signers stayed anonymous. The company has roughly 1,400 employees. The petition says friends and family have asked how workers can live with themselves if the news is true. It also says the risk to the company is too great.
Workers pointed to a workplace raid on September 4, 2025, at a Hyundai plant in Georgia. It detained 475 workers, mostly South Korean. Hyundai Motor Group owns Boston Dynamics, which it bought in June 2021. The petition says the company's work should not serve an agency that brutalizes civilians.
The unit that would use the robots, Homeland Security Investigations, is tied to immigration enforcement in the reporting. The Brennan Center for Justice documented its role in deportations and workplace raids from 2018 to 2021. The Immigration Policy Tracking Project says thousands of its agents were again moved to immigration work in Trump's second term.
A spokesperson said Spot robots help keep people out of harm's way. The statement said that if a robot can help keep people safe, the company believes it should, regardless of political implications. Boston Dynamics stresses that the robots would mainly be used against transnational criminal organizations.
In an email to staff, former interim CEO Amanda McMaster said the decision fits the company's purpose. She asked workers to respect and accept it, even if they disagree. She also pointed to the sales terms, which ban using Spot to harm or intimidate people or animals, or as a weapon.
The friendly robot dogs from viral videos are sold to government agencies too, and the engineers who build them are now speaking up.
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