WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 -- The four-legged robot has already walked the grounds of Mar-a-Lago. Now U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants it walking ahead of agents in the field.

ICE plans to spend as much as $2 million on Boston Dynamics SPOT robots, according to a federal procurement notice, marking the immigration agency's first formal commitment to deploy the widely recognized quadruped in enforcement operations. The robots will not make arrests, DHS officials say. Their job is to go in first, and report back.

SPOT's physical profile has become familiar to law enforcement agencies across North America: four-legged, roughly the size of a large dog, equipped with 360-degree cameras, sensors capable of detecting chemical hazards, a...