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CNN Live Today

Debates Over Immigration Agenda; Kids Helping Kids; Tragic Peanut Allergy Case

Aired November 29, 2005 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to our second half hour. I'm Tony Harris. Here's what's happening "Now in the News."
The first major snowstorm of the season is moving eastward. Minneapolis expects only an inch or two of snow, but with an icy undercoating, driving conditions could be treacherous in Kansas. Traffic is moving again on Interstate 70. Blizzard-like conditions have shut down the state's main east/west route from Salina to the Colorado state line.

Snow has arrived across the mountain peaks of earthquake-ravaged Kashmir, and with it, a newfound urgency. Many survivors are living in tents in the freezing temperatures. The United Nations is warning of a second wave of deaths from disease and the frigid cold.

Former President Bush is in Sri Lanka today on his third visit since last December's tsunami hit the island nation. Mr. Clinton met with the country's current and former presidents and later walked along the beach where the tsunami came ashore.

Germany's new foreign minister is in Washington to meet this hour with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. And much of Europe is abuzz over a possible topic of those talks. Frank-Walter Steinmeier says he expects the U.S. to answer charges that the CIA flew prisoners to secret jails in Europe. Steinmeier does did not say whether he would raise the issue.

President Bush is on the second day of a two-day visit to southwestern border states, and the trip points out the balancing act in the president's immigration agenda. Mr. Bush continues to push a guest worker plan while maintaining a tough stand on border security.

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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Illegal immigration is a serious challenge and our responsibility is clear. We are going to protect the border.

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HARRIS: The debate over U.S. immigration is a heated one. Business owners want immigrant workers, even the illegal ones, to do the work they say U.S. citizens won't do. But safeguards against possible terrorists must be in place.

Here to talk about that is Colin Hanna, president of weneedafence.com and Ben Johnson from the American Immigration Law Foundation. Gentlemen, thanks for being here.

COLIN HANNA, PRESIDENT, WENEEDAFENCE.COM: Good morning.

HARRIS: Let's see if we can get good work done this morning. Colin, let me start with you. Build a fence. Give us a sense of what we have in place right now. There's a wall, there's a fence, maybe not much of either, really. What do we have in place now?

HANNA: We have about a 2,000-mile border with about 80 miles of some kind of fencing.

HARRIS: That's it?

HANNA: That's right.

HARRIS: All right. Let me get your take on this whole issue. When you see illegal immigrants making the move, trying to get into the country, trying to cross the border, what do you see? Who do these people represent to you?

HANNA: There are all kinds of different people. There are people who are coming here for economic advantages. There are a few who are from special interest countries, terrorism harboring or terrorism sponsoring countries. It's a wide mix.

The point is we need to know who is coming into the United States. And it -- illegal immigration will always follow the path of least resistance. Right now, the path of least resistance is our wide open and porous borders. In the few cases where there is a fence, the fence has been effective. But of course, the fence stops and that becomes the newest hot spot or entry point.

HARRIS: OK, let me bring Ben in on the conversation. Ben, this idea of a fence sounds more about keeping folks out, as opposed to finding out who's getting in.

BEN JOHNSON, AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAW FOUNDATION: Yes, that's part of the problem. We've been throwing money at this issue for 10 plus years now, and the truth is, we've more undocumented immigration, more deaths at the border and this huge growth in the business of human smuggling.

We need to start looking at the difficult issue of figuring out how to create legal channels of immigration, so the people who we do want to come into the country can come in legally. When they give them that option, they'll choose not to go through the desert.

HARRIS: Ben, do you want to build a fence? Do you want to build a wall? What do you want to do?

JOHNSON: I want to create smart immigration policies that let in the people that we need come in to -- to do jobs, to be united with families in the United States. And I want to use our resources to focus on finding those people, those small number of employers who are trying to gain the system and those even smaller number of people that are coming here to do things we don't want them to do. HARRIS: Colin, if you build a fence, you build a wall -- all right, you want to build a fence. If you build a fence, you're just going to make a desperate situation even more desperate. These people who we see climbing this wall now, they understand. They know full well that there are jobs here and they're going continue to do whatever is necessary to get here.

HANNA: And that's precisely why a guest worker or a temporary worker program will only work if there is a secure physical barrier in place. Then that program will become the path of least resistance. Then the appropriate screening will occur.

The welcome mat will be out to enter the United States on a legal basis. That's what's not happening now. The president said yesterday that 350,000 have been apprehended with criminal records. That's the kind of person who needs to be kept out.

HARRIS: OK, but...

HANNA: We need to have a welcome mat for opportunity. We need to remain the beacon of opportunity, but we must do it legally. And as long as the border is open, whatever process we develop will become more burdensome than sneaking across the border. We need to secure the border, not close the border.

HARRIS: Ben...

HANNA: That's why we have proposed 200 border crossing point, for instance.

HARRIS: OK, Ben, a temporary guest worker program. What's the attraction of that for Mexicans? You work here for a while, then you got to go. They want the American dream.

HANNA: Well, listen, we -- for a long time, migration into the United States was much more circular than it is now. The fact is, with this hardened border policy that we've had, people have to come into the United States through other than legal channels because the legal channels don't exist. And then they get locked here in the United States.

So we would see much more circular migration if we had a legal system of immigration than we see now. That being said, there clearly are immigrants who would choose and we would want them to stay permanently. Those paths to a permanent status have to be part of the immigration system. They've always been there and we need to improve those.

But Colin is exactly right. I was -- it's good to hear him say that we need to improve legal channels of immigration. The difference is that once you do that, spending $9 billion to build a fence becomes unnecessary. People will choose to go through those open legal channels of immigration. And you can use that $9 billion on resources that will actually make a difference in terms of securing the country.

HARRIS: OK, Ben Johnson from the American Immigration Law Foundation and Colin Hanna, president of weneedafence.com. We're going to leave it there on a note of agreement. Thank you, gentlemen.

HANNA: Thank you, Tony.

HARRIS: A young couple's affection for one another turns into a kiss of death. When CNN LIVE TODAY returns, peanut allergies. How just trace amounts can actually kill.

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HARRIS: A tragic new case is highlighting the dangers of peanuts to people who are allergic to them.

CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen tells us how even trace amounts could be deadly.

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ELIZABETH COHEN (voice-over): Could it really have been the kiss of death? A 15-year-old Canadian girl died after kissing her boyfriend, who'd eaten peanut butter.

The girl had a severe peanut allergy, and for her and others like her, even 1/1,000th of a peanut can spell disaster. That's the case for Michelle Risinger. She's been severely allergic to nuts for as long as she can remember. She and a boyfriend also found out about the severity of her allergy the hard way.

RISINGER: He started kissing me, and my lips started tingling. And immediately I was like, "we have to stop and I need to go take Benadryl."

(INAUDIBLE)

COHEN: And she's not alone. More than one percent of Americans are allergic to peanuts and tree nuts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had all these hives all over my back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where I couldn't breathe and then I started wheezing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Within 20 minutes, I was completely unconscious on the front porch.

COHEN: All these reactions, from peanuts and nuts, trace amounts they didn't realize were in the foods they were eating. Dr. Robert Wood is an expert on peanut allergy, and has had a lifelong allergy to peanuts himself.

DR. ROBERT WOOD, JOHNS HOPKINS CHILDREN'S CENTER: I have certain rules that I abide by, and one of those rules is I don't eat any baked goods.

COHEN: The one exception he thought he could safely make? Accepting a homemade gift from a colleague, an expert on food allergies like himself, who assured him it was safe. WOOD: It turned out that they had made peanut butter Christmas cookies and non-peanut butter Christmas cookies and they had used the same spatula, maybe even the same cookie sheet without cleaning it in between.

COHEN: Wood found himself in the middle of a massive allergic reaction called anaphylaxis, which includes hives, swelling, and difficulty breathing. It took took five shots of epinephrine to stop the reaction. That's why those with serious food allergies need to carry EpiPens, adrenaline in a tube. Without it, these reactions could lead to a sudden drop in blood pressure, or worse.

WOOD: I've lost three patients due to anaphylaxis. One was a baked good, one was Chinese food, one was a candy. None of them had epinephrine available.

COHEN: All these foods had peanuts or peanut oil hidden inside. And these reactions are not as rare as you might think.

Eleven million Americans have food allergies. Accounting for tens of thousands of emergency room visits, and 150 to 200 deaths a year.

But perhaps the most startling trend, according to Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the number of American children allergic to peanuts doubled in five years.

As for Michelle Risinger, she gives all of her dates a choice. It's either peanuts, or her.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Want to order your cable channels a la carte? It may be an option that is coming your way. The word from Wall Street is just ahead.

And these California children wanted to help the kids and the animals affected by Hurricane Katrina. And they even asked our Anderson Cooper to help. Their story is still to come, this hour on CNN LIVE TODAY.

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HARRIS: Hundred of faithful are flocking to a California church to catch a glimpse of what they believe to be a miracle, a statue of the Virgin Mary outside of the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs' Church in Sacramento. Looks as though she is crying tears of blood as dozens pray and sing hymns to the statue. We thought it would be worth looking back at some other incidents of supposed divine intervention.

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HARRIS (voice-over): A Florida woman hit the jackpot last year when her grilled cheese sandwich, said to bear an image of the Virgin Mary, brought in $28,000 on eBay. Despite being ten years old, the bread never went moldy; proof positive, some believe, of its holiness. No word from the Vatican on this one.

In 2003, there was the Milton Madonna. Tense of thousands of pilgrims traveled to a hospital outside Boston to see an image of Mary and Jesus on a third-story window. The Boston Archdiocese later concluded it was not a miracle. The image reportedly formed from a leaking chemical deposit inside the window.

Then in April of 1984, a local bishop declared that the tears of a wooden statue in Japan were authentic. Our Lady of Akita had allegedly been weeping for several years. The statue had also been credited with curing the hearing of a deaf woman.

The most controversial of all, the Shroud of Turin, believed to be from the wrapping of the body of Christ. This cloth has confounded experts for thousands of years. The Catholic Church has never official confirmed or denied its authenticity. But the late (AUDIO GAP) in 1998 and 2000.

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HARRIS: And when we come back, the story of how a bunch of school kids helped Katrina victims and even got our Anderson Cooper to visit their classroom. That story, still ahead.

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HARRIS: Three months ago today, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. And if you're wondering if you could really make a difference in helping the victims, listen to this story very closely. It's about some schoolchildren in the town of Chico, California, who reached out to kids affected by the storm.

They enlisted CNN's own Anderson Cooper after seeing him report from the hurricane zone. In the process, they have a lesson for all of us. Anderson tells us all about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): Parkview Elementary School in Chico, California is about as far from hurricane-ravaged New Orleans as you can get. There aren't any storm evacuees here. No kids with personal connections to the Gulf.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take a big breath in.

COOPER: But when Rita Dane's fifth grade students heard about Hurricane Katrina, saw kids like them on TV without homes, animals without food, they felt compelled to help. The students went from classroom to classroom, talking about the deadly storm. Collecting donations in mason jars. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the jars were glittery and all that. It was cute.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like to use glitter a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot. A lot.

COOPER: The change piled up. In just two weeks, this school of 375 kids collected $1482.50. But they weren't sure where to send the money so they turned to CNN.

SARA KRAATZ, 5TH GRADER: Dear Mr. Anderson Cooper. My name is Sara and I was the one who organized the funding for the Hurricane Katrina survivors.

TEAGUE CORNING, 5TH GRADER: When I heard it about the hurricane, it made me want to reach out through the TV and help those survivors really bad.

ATTY PIERCE, 5TH GRADER: We as a class decided we wanted all the money to go to the children and lost animals in Katrina and Rita.

KELSEY REED, 5TH GRADER: It is also very important that the animals get help because unlike people, they can't talk on their cell phone or yell for help.

MARCO CASTENADEZ, 5TH GRADER: Our teacher, Ms. Dane, trusts you to get the money where it is needed so please take care of things for us.

JADE BECKER, 5TH GRADER: Even though we couldn't win the award for bringing in the most money, I feel like I have already won. It's been one of my greatest accomplishments.

KRAATZ: Thank you very much. Sincerely, Sara.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the way down. Touch your toes.

COOPER: Last week, as Ms. Dane's fifth graders were getting ready for Thanksgiving break.

Hello.

I traveled to Chico to meet them. I asked them why they decided to raise money for children and animals affected by the storm.

NICOLE JOLLIFFEE, 5TH GRADER: A lot of people always kind of think, what was that what if that was my family that was stranded? You always think of -- you always think of it. You never really understand how tragic it is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been to New Orleans before. And I saw some buildings and when I looked at the pictures, it was amazing how different it looked to me.

COOPER: What was New Orleans like when you went? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lively. Very fun. And lots of -- you could see how fun it was. In the peoples' faces. Now it's just devastated.

COOPER: It was 10-year-old Sara who came up with the fundraising plan.

KRAATZ: I -- I asked my dad, dad, there's so many people out there. And, I knew I couldn't just do it by myself. So I -- I just said it in class and the teacher said it would be a good idea to do it. And that's how it all started.

COOPER (on camera): But you weren't doing it in class. You were taking your own time after class and during lunch and stuff.

JONAH NILSSON, 5TH GRADER: A lot of people felt so bad they brought so much money. And, and I think that's how we raised a lot of it. Just by the people wanting to give.

REED: We counted it by hand all the money.

COOPER: Wow.

REED: It took like weeks to do.

COOPER (on camera): It's worth pointing out Chico is not a wealthy community. But that didn't stop the kids from giving what they could.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you think people who maybe don't have as much want to give a lot? Why do you think that?

CASTENADEZ: We couldn't possibly be in a worst situation than they are right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

CASTENADEZ: So we -- we want to give as much as we possibly can.

COOPER: We promised Ms. Dane and the students to come to New Orleans and make sure the money went to kids and animals in need.

What kind of impact do you think this has on them, they followed this through and did it.

RITA DANE, 5TH GRADE TEACHER: I think one man boy said it made me tickle on the inside. And I think that kind of sums it up. I think all the kids felt tickled on the inside.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: That's Anderson Cooper with one of the many stories of people pouring out their hearts to folks in the hurricane zone.

You can see Anderson every night on "ANDERSON COOPER 360." That's at 10:00 Eastern here on CNN. Potentially life-saving information coming up. Heart attacks kill more than 300,000 Americans every year, but CPR can double your chances of survival. Now, doctors have made some radical changes to the way CPR is administered. So we're going to show you exactly how to save life.

Also, big screen, big controversy for "Memoirs of Geisha." Why are they outraged in Japan over this Hollywood blockbuster? We'll take you to Tokyo for the answer. The second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY begins right now.

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