ICE

8 definitions found across Law Mind sources

ICEAuthored
The Law Mind • 1153 words
Definition
"Ice" carries two distinct legal meanings in the Law Mind corpus, and they could not be more different in context. Researchers must distinguish them clearly. 1. Ice as property (real and personal property law). Naturally formed ice — particularly ice forming on streams, ponds, and other water bodies — has been the subject of property disputes concerning ownership, severability from the realty, and the right to harvest or sell it. At common law, ice formed on a non-navigable stream was generally treated as part of the realty and belonged to the owner of the streambed. Once severed and harvested, it became personal property subject to sale and transfer. Whether ice on navigable waters followed the same rule was contested. 2. ICE as a federal agency (immigration law). U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the federal agency within the Department of Homeland Security principally responsible for civil immigration enforcement, including identification, arrest, detention, and removal of noncitizens who are present unlawfully or are otherwise subject to removal. ICE also has criminal investigative authority over immigration fraud, human trafficking, and related offenses. It was created in 2003 following the reorganization of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) under the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Water in frozen solid form; colloquially, extreme coldness of manner or atmosphere. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Water or other fluid frozen or reduced to a solid state by cold; a white or transparent crystalline substance; also concreted sugar and frozen dessert preparations. The gap between common and legal meaning runs in two directions. In property law, the legal meaning is narrower and more technical than everyday usage: the law is not concerned with ice generally but with naturally formed ice in specific hydrological contexts, and its legal significance turns on whether it is attached to real property or has been severed. In immigration law, the everyday word "ice" has been entirely displaced by the acronym ICE, which most researchers today will encounter only as the agency name — a meaning with no counterpart in common usage or in any historical dictionary.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES Property context: - Ice on non-navigable streams: Treated at common law as part of the realty, owned by the streambed owner. - Ice on navigable waters: Ownership rules varied by jurisdiction; some courts declined to apply the realty rule given the public nature of navigable waterways. - Severed ice: Once cut and removed, ice becomes personal property subject to ordinary sale and transfer. Immigration context: - ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO): The component handling civil immigration arrests, detention, and deportation proceedings. - ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI): The criminal investigative arm, handling trafficking, fraud, smuggling, and related federal crimes. - ICE detainers: Administrative requests from ICE to local law enforcement agencies to hold an individual beyond the time they would otherwise be released, pending ICE assumption of custody. This is a major area of Fourth Amendment and federalism litigation.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers face a fundamental disambiguation problem with this term. Historical sources — Bouvier's, Anderson's, and most pre-2003 materials — use "ice" exclusively in the property sense. Post-2003 legal materials, especially in immigration, administrative, and constitutional law, overwhelmingly use "ICE" to mean the federal agency. A keyword search across the corpus without attention to date and subject matter will return highly mixed results. In the property law context, the historical doctrine matters because it informs modern premises liability cases involving snow and ice accumulation on land. The common law rule that ice is part of the realty connects directly to landowner duties to remove or warn of hazardous accumulations — the subject of torts_40. Researchers working on slip-and-fall cases or municipal liability for public walkways should trace this thread from property ownership doctrine through to modern duty analysis. In the immigration context, the critical research areas are: (1) the scope of ICE's civil enforcement authority and its relationship to criminal law enforcement; (2) the constitutionality of ICE detainers under the Fourth Amendment, which hinges on whether an administrative detainer constitutes a seizure requiring probable cause and a judicial warrant; and (3) the interplay between federal ICE authority and state or local "sanctuary" policies limiting cooperation. These issues are addressed in immigration_88 and immigration_2. A further trap: Anderson's Dictionary of Law entry retrieved under "ICE" in this corpus appears to be a fragment concerning jurisdictional provisions for a Virginia court — almost certainly a retrieval artifact rather than an entry about ice per se. Researchers should not treat that fragment as substantive content on the ice-as-property doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the most useful historical treatment in the property sense. Bouvier states that ice formed in a non-navigable stream is part of the realty and belongs to the owner of the streambed, who has the right to prevent its removal by others. Bouvier cites Indiana, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Illinois authority for this proposition but flags a contrary Michigan decision holding that the ephemeral character of ice renders it incapable of any permanent or beneficial use as part of the soil — and therefore that a sale of already-severed ice is valid personal property transfer. This tension between the "realty rule" and the "ephemeral nature" exception was a genuine doctrinal fault line in the late nineteenth century. Neither Bouvier's nor Anderson's has any entry for ICE as a federal agency — both predate the agency's existence by a century or more. For the immigration meaning, historical dictionary support is entirely absent, and researchers must rely on statutory materials (the Homeland Security Act of 2002), regulatory sources, and the Law Mind Encyclopedia entries.
Jurisdictional Note
The property-law treatment of ice varied measurably by state in the nineteenth century, with Midwestern and New England courts developing conflicting rules on streambed ownership and the rights of ice harvesters. Modern immigration enforcement through ICE is federal and uniform in authority, but state and local cooperation with ICE detainers varies dramatically — several states and municipalities have enacted laws limiting such cooperation, a distinction that significantly affects research into enforcement patterns and constitutional challenges.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
immigration_88: ICE Detainers — Legal Authority, Fourth Amendment Challenges, and Judicial Warrants (The Law Mind Immigration Law Encyclopedia) immigration_2: Federal Immigration Agencies — USCIS, ICE, CBP, EOIR, DOS, and DOL Roles (The Law Mind Immigration Law Encyclopedia) torts_40: Premises Liability — Snow and Ice Removal Obligations (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia)
Related Terms
Detainer (immigration) | Removal proceedings | Deportation | USCIS | CBP | Department of Homeland Security | INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) | Sanctuary jurisdiction | Riparian rights | Navigable waters | Realty | Severance (property) | Personal property | Premises liability | Snow removal duty | Slip and fall
ICEmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
cases within a space of one mile around the city on the north of James river. Also exclusive jurisdiction of all appeals allowed by any State law, or ordinance of the city, from the judgments of the police justices courts, and of all causes removable from them; of proceedings for the condemnation, for public use, of lands, and of motions to correct erroneous assessments on realty; also, concurrent jurisdiction of actions for unlawful or forcible entry or detainer.¹ Uncut, is an accession or increment to the land.6 A riparian proprietor upon an unnavigable stream, having title to the middle of the stream, owns the ice that forms over his half of the water. 1 The Grapeshot, 9 Wall. 141-42 (1869), Chase, C. J. 2 The Julia Blake, 16 Blatch. 484-85, 490-94 (1879), cases: 107 U. S. 432, ante. R. S. §§ 4192, 4382. 4Gk. hypothesis, a placing under: supposition. See 1 Daniel, Neg. Inst. § 36, cases; 1 Parsons, Notes, &c. 25; Story, Prom. Notes, 14; Smith v. Shelden, 35 Mich. 47 (1876). • Washington Ice. Co. v. Shortall, 101 Ill. 54 (1881). See also Bigelow v. Shaw, Sup. Ct. Mich. (1887), cases; 34 Conn. 462; 33 Ind. 402; 8 Mich. 18; 30 N. Y. 519; 15 How. Pr. 376.
ICEmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
Ice formed in a stream not naviga- ble is part of the realty, and belongs to the owner of the bed of the stream, who has a right to prevent its removal; 33 Ind. 402; 34 Conn. 462; 80 Wis. 531; 101 Ill. 46; but see, contra, 41 Mich. 318, where it is said that the ephemeral character of ice renders it incapable of any permanent or beneficial use as part of the soil, and therefore a sale of ice already formed, as a distinct commod- ity, should be held a sale of personalty whether in the water or out of the water. See, also, 32 Am. Rep. 160, note; 32 Am. L. Reg. 166. Riparian owners on navigable streams have no title to the ice which forms on such streams, as an incident to their ownership of the bank; and if a statute gives them title to the ice opposite their property, and prescribes a remedy for in- vasion of their rights therein, that remedy is exclusive; 11 Misc. Rep. 197. The right of taking ice either for use or sale from a pond which is a public water, is a public right which may be exercised by any citi- zen who can obtain access to the pond with- out trespassing on the lands of other per- sons, or unreasonably interfering with their rights; 7 Allen 158; 121 Mass. 539; 26 Kan. 682. A landowner cannot cut ice for sale from a pond situated on his land, where its removal works an actual injury to one hav- ing a pondage right therein; 62 Conn. 398; but the owner of land abutting on a mill- pond may take ice from the pond if it does not interfere with the use of the mill; 42 Neb. 238. Ice in an ice-house is a subject of larceny, but before being gathered it is not, being part of the pond or river; 8 Hill 895; 6 id. 144. See Bish. N. Cr. L. § 765, n. 2. See, generally, as to ice and the property therein, 82 Am. L. Reg. N. 8. 66; 27 id. 231, 240; 30 Cent. L. J. 6; 37 id. 357; 3 Alb. L. J. 386; 48 id. 504.
ICEn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
Water or other fluid frozen or reduced to the solid state by cold; frozen water. It is a white or transparent colorless substance, crystalline, brittle, and viscoidal. Its specific gravity (0.92, that of water at 4° C. being 1.0) being less than that of water, ice floats. Concreted sugar. Johnson. Water, cream, custard, etc., sweetened, flavored, and artificially frozen. Any substance having the appearance of ice; as, camphor ice. Anchor ice, ice which sometimes forms about stones and other objects at the bottom of running or other water, and is thus attached or anchored to the ground. -- Bay ice, ice formed in bays, fiords, etc., often in extensive fields which drift out to sea. -- Ground ice, anchor ice. -- Ice age (Geol.), the glacial epoch or period. See under Glacial. -- Ice anchor (Naut.), a grapnel for mooring a vessel to a field of ice. Kane. -- Ice blink Etym: [Dan. iisblink], a streak of whiteness of the horizon, caused by the reflection of light from ice not yet in sight. -- Ice boat. (a) A boat fitted with skates or runners, and propelled on ice by sails; an ice yacht. (b) A strong steamboat for breaking a channel through ice. -- Ice box or chest, a box for holding ice; a box in which things are kept cool by means of ice; a refrigerator. -- Ice brook, a brook or stream as cold as ice. [Poetic] Shak. -- Ice cream Etym: [for iced cream], cream, milk, or custard, sweetened, flavored, and frozen. -- Ice field, an extensive sheet of ice. -- Ice float, Ice floe, a sheet of floating ice similar to an ice field, but smaller. -- Ice foot, shore ice in Arctic regions; an ice belt. Kane. -- Ice house, a close-covered pit or building for storing ice. -- Ice machine (Physics), a machine for making ice artificially, as by the production of a low temperature through the sudden expansion of a gas or vapor, or the rapid evaporation of a volatile liquid. -- Ice master. See Ice pilot (below). -- Ice pack, an irregular mass of broken and drifting ice. -- Ice paper, a transparent film of gelatin for copying or reproducing; papier glacé. -- Ice petrel (Zoöl.), a shearwater (Puffinus gelidus) of the Antarctic seas, abundant among floating ice. -- Ice pick, a sharp instrument for breaking ice into small pieces. -- Ice pilot, a pilot who has charge of a vessel where the course is obstructed by ice, as in polar seas; -- called also ice master. -- Ice pitcher, a pitcher adapted for ice water. -- Ice plow, a large tool for grooving and cutting ice. ice sculpture = a sculpture carved from a block of ice, often used for decorating restaurants. ice show an entertainment consisting of ice skaters performing figure-skating on a sheet of ice, usually in an arena, often accompanied by music. -- Ice sludge, bay ice broken small by the wind or waves; sludge. -- Ice spar (Min.), a variety of feldspar, the crystals of which are very clear like ice; rhyacolite. -- Ice tongs, large iron nippers for handling ice. -- Ice water. (a) Water cooled by ice. (b) Water formed by the melting of ice. -- Ice yacht. See Ice boat (above). -- To break the ice. See under Break. -- Water ice, a confection consisting of water sweetened, flavored, and frozen.
ICEv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To cover with ice; to convert into ice, or into something resembling ice. To cover with icing, or frosting made of sugar and milk or white of egg; to frost, as cakes, tarts, etc. To chill or cool, as with ice; to freeze.
ICEadj
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
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Initialism of isolated, confined, extreme.
icenoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
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Water in frozen (solid) form. | Any frozen volatile chemical, such as ammonia or carbon dioxide. | Any volatile chemical, such as water, ammonia, or carbon dioxide, not necessarily in solid form, when discussing the composition of e.g. a planet as an ice giant vs a gas giant. | Something having an extreme coldness of manner. | Something, such as awkwardness, that prevents open social interaction. | The area where a game of ice hockey is played. | Icing; frosting ("a sweet, often creamy and thick glaze made primarily of sugar"). | A frozen dessert made of fruit juice, water and sugar. | An ice cream. | An individual piece of ice. | Elephant or rhinoceros ivory that has been poached and sold on the black market. | An artifact that has been smuggled, especially one that is either clear or shiny. | Money paid as a bribe. | The crystal form of amphetamine-based drugs, including methamphetamine. | One or more diamonds.
iceverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
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To become ice; to freeze. | To cool with ice, as an injured body part or a beverage. | To make icy; to freeze. | To cover with icing (frosting made of sugar and milk or white of egg); to frost; as cakes, tarts, etc. | To put out a team for a match. | To shoot the puck the length of the playing surface, causing a stoppage in play called icing. | To murder. | To defeat decisively.

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