The beauty of life is that it offers  a surprise when you least expect it.

My surprise came last year, when I was asked to write a book.  Not just any book, either. This is a book that required me to  immerse myself in the world of  men and women I otherwise would not know – unauthorized Mexican immigrants who live in Phoenix, in the midst of  Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s ramped up raids, and state laws that prevent them from working, driving, learning, going to the doctor.

I’ve witnessed demagoguery, hatred, grit, determination, grace, street theater, tragedy, love, courage, persistence, passion, sin, hope, loss, joy, fear.

In the categories of grit,  street theater and passion, pro-migrant demonstrators like the people in this picture,  have been picketing Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office at the Wells Fargo Building in downtown Phoenix for eighteen months. They’re at the place for a couple of hours every work day, like clockwork.

You can see the sign likening Sheriff Joe to the KKK.   It is extreme street theater, and it makes me uncomfortable, but it had its intended effect.

The demonstrators  embarrassed one of the biggest banks in the United States.

Now Wells Fargo has decided it needs the two floors currently occupied by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Wells Fargo wants Sheriff Joe to leave.

Whether you agree with Sheriff Joe or you agree with the demonstrators, or, like many people,  you are someplace in between, you can see that Sheriff Joe’s anti-immigrant activities have backfired on him.  The sheriff’s roundups and raids of immigrants had an unintended effect – they spurred a  tenacious  and effective activism in Phoenix.

The demonstrators know that Sheriff Joe is on the way out. His poll numbers are dropping. His office is being scrutinized by a federal Grand Jury, and the sheriff himself is being investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for abuse of power and racial  profiling.

I don’t think the activists will rest. I think they will focus on two Arpaio allies who have enabled Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s raids.

The first is former Maricopa County Sheriff Deputy and current State Senator Russell Pearce, the architect of many anti-immigrant laws, including the Employer Sanctions Act, which took effect in 2008, and threatens to put Arizona employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers out of business.  The sheriff has used the Employer Sanctions Act as an excuse to raid workplaces and arrest immigrants. The employers, on  the other hand, have fared well, because the Employer Sanctions Act doesn’t have the teeth to really go after employers. So far, one employer has been slapped on the wrist, but it doesn’t  matter because that company  no longer does business in Arizona. A second employer is currently facing prosecution. Russell Pearce believes he’s a patriot, and that the United States is being overrun by immigrants who take jobs from Americans.

The second target of activism will be Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. He came up with the theory that immigrants who hire smugglers to bring them into Arizona can be charged as co-conspirators. So, what that means is that a bunch of unauthorized immigrants found, say,  held against their will in a drop house  can be prosecuted as co-conspirators of the smugglers who hold them at gunpoint.

Thomas and Pearce and Arpaio are co-conspirators themselves, the way the activists see it.

Life is full of surprises. Just ask Sheriff Joe.