Former First Lady Laura Bush has come out against the Arizona immigration law, pointing to the discrimination that her own Irish ancestors, named Welch, faced in their time.

In an interview with Fox News, Bush said the new law merely showed an upsurge in prejudice similar to what her Irish ancestors faced.

Here is what she said on Fox News' "Sunday with Chris Wallace" in relation to immigration and state of play in Arizona:


Chris Wallace:  ... you talk {in the book] to your husband about not making gay marriage a big issue in reelection campaign.  Why not?

L.B.:  ...what happens on big social issues like that is that the debate ends up denigrating a certain group of people. And I think that's also what's happening on the immigration debate, another hot button issue, where instead of it being a debate of what the laws are, it ends up making a group of people feel like they are the target of the debate.

Chris Wallace: I have to ask, since you brought it up, are you unhappy with the Arizona Law?



LB:  Well, not necessarily, I mean I think we have to have immigration laws and that's just a really important part of it. It's just that the debate about immigration laws, about Arizona's law in targeting someone, a group of people, and this is not new in American history. There have been many groups of immigrants who have been targeted over all of our history, the Irish for instance, when a lot of Irish immigrants, including my family, came to the United States [and] other times, and it's just a trace of Nativism that shows up in American history in a lot of different ways.