What are ICE’s stated policies for arresting parents with minor children and how have enforcement tactics changed in 2025–2026?
Executive summary
ICE’s formal policy on arresting parents with minor children is codified in Directive 11064.4, “Detention and Removal of Alien Parents and Legal Guardians of Minor Children,” issued July 2, 2025, which states the agency will seek to avoid unnecessarily infringing parental or guardianship rights and obligations of covered individuals [1]. At the same time, enforcement tactics across 2025–2026 shifted toward a markedly more aggressive, better‑resourced campaign — with large targeted operations, increased arrests of family members and more children appearing in ICE custody — prompting starkly different accounts from advocates and DHS spokespeople about what those tactics mean in practice [2] [3].
1. Policy framework: the 2025 detained‑parents directive and scope
ICE’s 2025 directive establishes who is a “Covered Individual” — alien parents or legal guardians who are primary caretakers of minor children or who have a direct interest in family/court or child welfare proceedings — and frames agency intent to protect parental decision‑making during arrest, detention, and removal processes [1] [4]. The guidance is presented as complementary to ICE’s broader detention standards and is expressly meant to inform intake, detention, and removal decisions involving parents or legal guardians of minors [5].
2. What the directive tells arresting officers to do
The directive and agency materials instruct officers to inquire about parental or guardian status at encounters, to allow parents to make arrangements for their children at the point of arrest, and to avoid removing a child with a detained parent whenever possible — in short, to facilitate parents’ ability to remain involved in child‑welfare or family‑court matters even if detained [6] [7]. ICE’s detention management guidance has long listed “primary caregiver of minor children” among humanitarian considerations factored into detention decisions [8].
3. What changed from the 2022 parental‑interest policy
The 2025 Directive 11064.4 replaced the Biden‑era parental interest directive from 2022; key differences flagged by advocacy groups include narrowing the population covered (e.g., removal of protections for legal guardians of incapacitated adults in some versions) and elimination of certain humanitarian parole options while retaining protocols intended to allow parents to prepare for their children’s care prior to removal [4] [9]. NGOs and legal advocates produced side‑by‑side comparisons documenting both retained protections and lost safeguards in the new text [9] [4].
4. Enforcement tactics in 2025–2026: escalation, resources, and operations
Beginning in 2025 the federal campaign accelerated: DHS and ICE significantly increased hiring and received historic funding increases, and reporting documents large show‑of‑force targeted operations, night raids and arrests that critics say often involved heavy equipment and resulted in children being present or briefly detained [3] [2]. News and advocacy reporting catalogued instances where children accompanied arrested parents into ICE custody and where arrests took place at workplaces, laundromats, schools and during routine interactions — raising questions about field practice versus written policy [2] [10] [11].
5. Documented impacts and competing narratives
Advocates and media outlets documented thousands of children appearing in ICE custody in 2025 and reported cases where children were zip‑tied, detained for hours, or present during forceful arrests, while ICE told courts it seeks to minimize child detention and discharge minors quickly [2] [11]. DHS officials counter that a large share of arrests are of people with criminal convictions or pending charges and describe portrayals of indiscriminate family targeting as false narratives, citing agency arrest statistics and the new enforcement priorities [3].
6. Limits of available reporting and unresolved questions
Public sources clearly set out ICE’s written protections for detained parents and document an enforcement escalation, but available reporting does not fully reconcile how often front‑line practices align with the directive’s requirements in real time or how CBP or local law enforcement coordinate handling of children at arrest scenes — gaps that merit further document review and FOIA requests [1] [5] [2].
Conclusion: law on the books vs. practice on the ground
On paper ICE’s 2025 detained‑parents directive creates explicit processes intended to preserve parental decision‑making and avoid removing children with detained parents, yet the same period saw operational escalation — more agents, funding and aggressive raids — that produced high‑visibility family arrests and increased child contacts with immigration custody, prompting conflicting characterizations from advocates and DHS about how policy translates into practice [1] [3] [2].