Immigration Debate Looms Large Over Mexican President's State Visit

WASHINGTON, May 19, 2010— -- State visits to the White House, like today's with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his wife, Margarita Zavala, are supposed to be carefully choreographed celebrations of a strong bilateral relationship.

But today the uncomfortable topic of immigration reform kept intruding.

Calderon today took the unusual step of criticizing Arizona's new immigration law from the White House -- twice.

At the arrival ceremony this morning on the South Lawn of the White House, Calderon said that cooperation is needed to fix the U.S.-Mexican immigration issue, but "such laws as the Arizona law that is forcing our people to face discrimination. If we are divided, we cannot overcome these problems."

Later in the White House Rose Garden, Calderon voiced his disapproval of the law once again.

"We oppose firmly the S.B. 1070 Arizona law," which he said was "discriminatory."

President Obama concurred and said the law has the potential of being applied in a "discriminatory fashion."

The president said a "fair reading" of the law -- suggesting that he has read the legislation, unlike Attorney General Eric Holder as of last week -- indicates those who are at risk of being deemed possibly illegal could face "harassment" and that the judgments law enforcement would need to make to apply the law are "troublesome."

The Justice Department is looking at the legislation, the president said, to make sure it is consistent with "our core values" and "existing legal precedent."

Obama also said the law expresses some of the frustrations of the American people for a broken immigration system and the failure of the federal government to find a fix

"I'm sympathetic to those frustrations. I share those frustrations," he said.

The law has not yet taken effect, but in Arizona it has resulted in protests and arrests.

Outside the Tuscon office of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., three students were arrested and are facing deportation for being in the country illegally.

The debate is intense and is creeping into the economy. The Los Angeles City Council voted last month to boycott all official business in Arizona, prompting Arizona's utilities commission to all but threaten to cut off electrical power to Los Angeles from Arizona power plants that provide a quarter of that city's energy.