OTTAWA — The armoured vehicles U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is purchasing from Canadian defence firm Roshel fall under Buy American provisions, the law enforcement agency said Thursday.
The department’s media relations team said in an emailed statement that the “production of the Roshel Senator emergency response vehicle originates in the United States.”
Despite numerous requests, the ICE agency did not provide a named spokesperson to which the statement could be attributed, and only replied days after The Canadian Press first asked about the procurement.
The email said the armoured vehicle is a “certified domestic end-product that will be used to support ICE’s law-enforcement operations,” according to the provisions of the Buy American Act that relate to the manufacture and origin of component parts.
ICE did not offer further information Thursday and did not say where the vehicles were made.
Roshel has several manufacturing plants in Ontario and it opened a Michigan facility in 2024. The company said at the time that U.S. defence and law enforcement agencies accounted for most of its orders.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Wednesday that Ottawa was not “contacted regarding any permits for this transaction.”
Roshel has not responded for days to numerous requests from The Canadian Press for comment and has not issued any public statements.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Roshel CEO Roman Shimanov questioned why the news media does not report on companies that “sell socks to the U.S. government.”
ICE is sole-sourcing 20 armoured vehicles from the Brampton, Ont.-based company in a rush-order contract worth some C$10 million.
The purchase quickly drew criticism from anti-arms advocates and politicians in Canada due to the law enforcement agency’s alleged record of human rights abuses.
U.S. President Donald Trump is pursuing a mass deportation campaign to expel vast numbers of immigrants residing in the country illegally.
The tactical vehicles are designed to withstand bullets and bomb blasts. A U.S. federal government procurement website states that a contract was awarded for the vehicles on Nov. 28.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan has said she’s profoundly troubled by the contract because the ICE agency has been credibly accused of human rights abuses.
“This contract raises serious questions about Canada’s role and responsibility when it comes to our technology and products being deployed abroad,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
Kwan is seeking to advance legislation to strengthen oversight of exports of component parts for military hardware — though her party is vastly outnumbered in the current Parliament.
Roshel has supplied hundreds of such armoured vehicles to Ukraine as the country wages a protracted war of defence with Russia that began in 2022.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 4, 2025.
Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press
