Checklist for the 2025 ICE Directive (Detention and Removal of Alien Parents and Legal Guardians of Minor Children

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has guidance that governs the responsibilities of ICE staff when engaging with parents or legal guardians who are detained, pursuant to immigration enforcement. Often referred to as a “parental interest policy,” this guidance governs ICE’s obligations and responsibilities regarding parents’ ability to make decisions about their children’s care and custody.

ICE issued its first parental interest policy in 2013. The 2013 Parental Interests Directive provided guidance to ICE officers who encountered noncitizen parents of minor children on whether or when to detain such parents, facilitating parents’ decisions about care and custody of their children, enabling participation in any child welfare proceedings, and preserving family unity in the event of deportation.

In 2017, the first Trump administration replaced the 2013 directive. In 2022, the Biden administration rescinded the 2017 guidance and issued a Parental Interest Directive that largely mirrored, but also expanded, the original 2013 protections. On July 2, ICE rescinded the 2022 Parental Interest Directive and issued a new version of the policy, known as the Detained Parents Directive; officially named ICE Directive 11064.4, Detention and Removal of Alien Parents and Legal Guardians of Minor Children (2025 Directive).

The 2025 Directive weakens protections for noncitizen parents and dramatically reduces ICE’s obligations to facilitate family unity. However, it does provide some areas that detained parents/legal guardians can ask for consideration or accommodations for, like issues of visitation and attendance at child welfare or family court proceedings.

Child welfare agencies are important arbiters of detained parents’ parental rights, and they play a crucial role in facilitating relationships between detained parents and their children. Child welfare agencies are also uniquely positioned to monitor ICE’s compliance with their obligations towards detained parents, legal guardians, and their minor children. This guide provides child welfare workers with some practical tools to guide their interactions with detained parents, legal guardians, and their children. It contains a checklist of questions that lawyers, legal advocates, child welfare workers, and detained parents and guardians themselves can ask of ICE regarding their compliance with the 2025 Directive.

This guide is not comprehensive, in that it does not cover the full range of protections a parent or child may be eligible for. Unless otherwise stated, the obligations listed here are also not binding on ICE, and (except with respect to some provisions) ICE may not be required to comply. Rather, this guide is intended to provide child welfare workers with a list of the nonbinding obligations that are stated in the policy, and around which they can request compliance. It also allows child welfare providers to help track ICE’s compliance (or noncompliance) with its parental interest policies.