The "Immigration Police": ICE.

When people refer to the "immigration police," who they are really referring to is the law enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE is the largest investigative branch of DHS.

The law enforcement division was established in 2003, following the Homeland Security Act of 2002. ICE assumes many of the previous duties of the United States Customs Service (Treasury), Immigration and Naturalization Service (Justice) and Federal Protective Service.

ICE is responsible for enforcing over 400 federal statutes and has 17,200 employees. It's $5 billion budget allows for a strong presence with more than 50 locations around the world. With such a large task force, ICE is able to dedicate time to investigation on a variety of topics, including:

• smuggling and document fraud operations
• sexual predators
• visa security
• illegal arms trafficking
• document and identity fraud
• drug trafficking
• child pornography and sex tourism
• immigration and customs fraud
• intellectual property rights violations
• financial crime, human smuggling and trafficking

A huge component of ICE is its National Fugitive Operations Program, which aims to identify and arrest fugitive aliens. Typically, officers engaged in this program are the ones most often viewed by the public. Like all topics of interest, there are many who support ICE and many who are against it. Check out this video about the fugitive program from Ledger Live, a multimedia component from New Jersey-based newspaper the Star Ledger.

Ledger Live: ICE raids go off target; journalist loses hope

According to ICE , "a fugitive alien is someone who "has failed to depart the United States pursuant to a final order of removal, deportation, or exclusion; or who has failed to report to a Detention and Removal Officer after receiving notice to do so."