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The Supreme Court announced Monday it will rule on the Justice Department’s legal challenge to Arizona’s controversial immigration law SB 1070. Their decision is set to be one of the most significant of 2012. The Arizona law sparked renewed support for the immigrant rights movement nationwide but also spurred copycat laws in many other states including Georgia and Alabama. It also drew attention to existing federal programs like Secure Communities, operating under Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE, with the cooperation of state police forces. Secure Communities has been criticized for detaining and deporting thousands of nonviolent, innocent undocumented immigrants, contrary to promises by the Obama administration that it only targets the most dangerous criminals. Also, in many states, including California, it has been reported that U.S. citizens have been unlawfully detained under the program. Northwestern University Professor Jacqueline Stevens recently estimated that of the 400,000 people detained pending deportation each year in the US, “a low but persistent” percentage are US citizens. Stevens told the LA Times she has identified at least 160 citizens who were improperly detained in past years. Here in Los Angeles the case of US citizen Antonio Montejano drew national attention when Montejano was arrested for a petty theft in early November and detained as an undocumented immigrant. Montejano reported the LA county Sheriff held him for 48 hours after a judge ordered him released because they suspected he was undocumented, though he repeatedly asserted his citizenship status. Incidents like this led Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to write to Governor Jerry Brown asking him to suspend the state’s participation in Secure Communities citing “[i]ndividuals who pose no discernible threat to public safety are held in our local jails at the taxpayers’ expense, with minimal to no reimbursement from ICE.” In 2010 LA County facilitated the deportation of 916,000 people, coming in second to Arizona. In Downtown L.A. yesterday thousands of people including Occupy LA activists, labor, community and religious leaders marched from Olvera Street to the Federal Building for an “Occupy ICE” protest. The protestors called on the Department of Homeland Security to “stop doing the dirty work of wealthy corporations by targeting hardworking immigrant families.” I was at yesterday’s march and rally to bring you this special report.