Michelle Obama Caught in Immigration Debate

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2010— -- The state dinner Wednesday night for Mexico's President Calderon went as scripted, but the visit was dominated by the thorny issue that has raised heated debate in recent months -- immigration. Even Michelle Obama was pulled into the controversy during a visit with the Mexican president's wife to a local elementary school.

President Calderon called the new immigration law in Arizona discriminatory.

"If we are divided, we cannot overcome these problems," Calderon said at the arrival ceremony Wednesday morning.

President Obama agreed, saying that he shares the frustrations of people unhappy about the inability of lawmakers to pass immigration reform but that the "troublesome" Arizona law could subject people to "harassment."

"I think the Arizona law has the potential of being applied in a discriminatory fashion," Obama said in joint remarks with Calderon.

Michelle Obama, who visited New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md., with Mexico's first lady Margarita Zavala, was caught in a headline-grabbing moment when a second-grader shyly raised her hand. She said: My mom "says Barack Obama's taking everybody away that doesn't have papers."

"Yeah, well that's something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That's exactly right," the first lady responded.

But then, the student quietly added: "But my mom doesn't have any."

"Well, we have to work on that," Mrs. Obama replied. "We have to fix that, and everybody's got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens. That's right."