Protecting the Border; President Bush to Make Latest Iraq War Pitch to Nation
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And good evening, everyone. Tonight, a vital concern for all Americans -- is there a better way to protect a border that is thousands of miles long and doesn't seem to keep anyone out?</s>ZAHN (voice-over): They come by day, by night, illegally, and by the millions.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Illegal immigration is a serious challenge.</s>ZAHN: All they have to do to stay here legally is have one baby. Pole thieves.</s>CHIP FRANKLIN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: How can we lose 130 light poles?</s>ZAHN: You heard right. Why would anyone steal a light pole?</s>FRANKLIN: And it would be embarrassing to have a press conference in the dark, you know with...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... where's that light? It was just in here.</s>ZAHN: A mystery that has left a city in the dark. Webcam rescue. She owes her life to the tiny camera on her computer and an eagle-eyed son who was 7,000 miles away.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have kind of a weird thing here. The lady that called was calling from Norway.</s>ZAHN: An amazing rescue that could only happen in our wired world.</s>ZAHN: And, tonight, we want to give you a head-start by beginning with what is likely to be the big story tomorrow, when President Bush makes his latest pitch to win back support for the war in Iraq and outlines conditions under which he might start to bring home some troops. The war in Iraq is putting an awful lot of pressure on the White House. And, at the president's stop in Denver today, anti-war protesters greeted the White House press bus. And while the president may not have seen those demonstrators, we are now seeing some signs that he is getting the message, after taking a beating in the polls for weeks. White House correspondent Dana Bash joins me now with the very latest on what we can expect tomorrow. Hi, Dana.</s>DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Paula. Well, the message the White House says they're getting is that the American public doesn't necessarily think that the president has an actual clear plan to win in Iraq. So, the goal of tomorrow's speech and several others after that is to show that he does.</s>BASH (voice-over): In a preview of what the White House is billing as a major speech on Iraq, the president, while touring the border in El Paso, suggested troops could start coming home from Iraq soon, but warned too soon would be a terrible mistake.</s>BUSH: I want our troops to come home, but I don't want them to come home without having achieved victory. And we've got a strategy for victory.</s>BASH: The president will try to define that strategy, aides say, in more detail than ever before, focusing on progress Iraqis are making in securing their own country. A senior official says Mr. Bush will admit it's taken more time than expected to properly train Iraqi security forces, but he will cite some 120 Iraqi battalions in the fight, 40 leading missions, and tout specific regions, like a road formerly known as Death Street, that are now safe and under Iraqi control. The president will make clear more of what he calls Iraqi advances will mean U.S. troops can come home. When that can happen, he says, is still up to his military commanders.</s>BUSH: If they tell me that the Iraqis are ready to take more and more responsibility and we will be able to bring some Americans home, I will do that. A Democrat just back from Iraq who wants U.S. troops to stay reports progress, but warns, it may be slow-going.</s>SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: The Iraqis are beginning to show much more self-sufficiency. They're a long way from being able to take it on their own.</s>BASH: The White House has tried several times before to turn around slumping support for Iraq with speeches billed as major. After Cindy Sheehan captured August headlines, Bush aides promised to explain their Iraq policy better with this VFW speech. That was two months after using the same tactic with this prime-time address.</s>BUSH: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it.</s>BASH: Yet, they lost support. In June, 52 percent of Americans said it wasn't worth going to war -- two months later, 54 percent. Now 60 percent, six in 10 Americans, say Iraq wasn't worth it.</s>BILL MCINTURFF, PARTNER AND CO-FOUNDER, PUBLIC OPINION STRATEGIES: What the headlines say every day in Iraq is how many poor people got blown up and how many American soldiers were killed. That's the reality that's shaping opinions about Iraq.</s>BASH: And Bush officials say they believe Americans will be willing to stay in Iraq as long as they think they can win. And that's why, that's a word we have already heard the president use more often, likely will continue to do in the next few weeks. And, Paula, as I mentioned, they do concede here that the public needs to understand that there is actually plan in Iraq. And that's why, tomorrow morning, the White House is going to declassify a 20- plus-page document that shows, they will say, that they do have plan -- Paula.</s>ZAHN: Dana, it's -- it's pretty clear that the Democrats, so far, have not had a unified voice in reaction to the prosecution of this war. How are they likely to react to the president's speech tomorrow?</s>BASH: Well, you know, we have -- we're likely to hear from Senator John Kerry, the president's former opponent in 2004, and we are likely to hear from the Democratic leadership, probably talking about what they have said and even voted on in the Senate, which is that they do think it's important for the president to give some kind of general timetable for withdrawal of troops in Iraq. That's what Democrats in general do have consensus on. But you are exactly right. The one thing that the president, the White House, wants to exploit, if you will, with tomorrow's speech -- and they want to continue to do -- is what they see as very clear divides within the Democratic Party about just how to approach Iraq. We saw that today, with Senator Joe Lieberman writing in "The Wall Street Journal" and coming out and talking to reporters, almost verbatim, saying the same things that President Bush has said about staying in Iraq, where, on the other hand, you have other Democrats saying the opposite, saying the troops should come home immediately. That is something that you are going to hear more and more from the White House about.</s>ZAHN: Politics always making strange bedfellows.</s>ZAHN: Dana Bash, thanks for the preview.</s>BASH: Thank you.</s>ZAHN: And you can get out of the rain now. Now, Dana just mentioned the president's stop in El Paso to press for immigration reform. According to one recent study, one out of every 10 babies born in this country is born to illegal immigrant parents. Now, those children automatically get U.S. citizenship because they're born on American soil. And there is a move on to change all of that. Here's Thelma Gutierrez.</s>THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new life comes into the world on the U.S. side of the border. By birthright, these children are citizens of the United States. But not all of their parents are citizens. In fact, some are illegal immigrants. Critics of birthright citizenship call these infants anchor babies, because they are entitled to social benefits that can lead to legal resident status for their families, the critics say, an incentive for illegal immigrants to give birth in the United States. That fear has been fueled by a report released this year by the Center For Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that wants stricter limits on immigration. It claims that 383,000, or 42 percent of births to immigrants, are to illegal immigrant mothers. Steve Camarota was the author of the study.</s>STEVE CAMAROTA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: One of the things we did was, we looked at birth certificate records. This is a source of information that's very valuable on immigrants, because it's one place where all immigrants, at least when they have children, come into contact with state authority.</s>GUTIERREZ: The study alleges that birth to illegals now account for nearly one out of every 10 births in the United States, a number disputed by a Mexican-American advocacy group.</s>JOHN TRASVINA, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR LAW AND POLICY, MEXICAN- AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE FUND: It's really an exaggeration, both the number and the extent of this notion of anchor babies.</s>GUTIERREZ: John Trasvina says the study is flawed, because birth certificates don't reflect the citizenship of the parents, just their place of birth.</s>TRASVINA: I don't how they could come up with that number, because hospitals don't take into account the citizenship status of pregnant mothers who come in to have children at hospitals. So, how they get their number is really unclear to me and unclear to a lot of other demographers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... foreign and domestic.</s>GUTIERREZ: Whatever the facts, the results have touched off a national debate about who has the right to be an American and what so- called anchor babies cost the rest of American society. But both sides agree, the debate should not be focused on the issue of birthright citizenship, but on reforming immigration altogether, the same issue that has challenged this country for generations. Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>ZAHN: The idea that you can cross the border just to have a baby, who will be a U.S. citizen, and then stay in this country legally has a lot of people outraged. And joining me now to debate this, Angelica Salas of the Coalition For Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, and Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado who serves on the bipartisan House Immigration Reform Caucus. Good to have both of you with us tonight. Welcome.</s>ANGELICA SALAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COALITION FOR HUMANE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS OF LOS ANGELES: It's a pleasure.</s>REP. TOM TANCREDO (R), COLORADO: Thank you.</s>ZAHN: Congressman Tancredo, how big of a problem is it that illegal immigrants are having children in this country...</s>TANCREDO: Yes.</s>ZAHN: ... so that those babies will become U.S. citizens?</s>TANCREDO: It's huge problem. And it's growing every single day. There are people coming across the border specifically for the reason of having a child in the United States, having it anchored as a citizen, later on, then, to be able to have that child bring in their family, under family reunification. So many people are doing that, Paula, that there are neonatal wards in hospitals around the country, especially in -- in the southern part of the country, southern part of the United States, along the border, that have closed their -- their neonatal unit. They can't handle it. Get this. Over 60 percent of the -- of the births to mothers in the Los Angeles hospital district are -- are to people who are illegal aliens, over 60 percent of the births. So, to suggest that this is not a problem is -- well, is whistling past the graveyard.</s>ZAHN: Ms. Salas, do you even concede tonight that this is a problem and that this is a burden for U.S. taxpayers?</s>SALAS: Well, what I do know is that immigrants are coming to this country to work, that they are producing tax -- tax-based -- taxes that actually pay for these hospitals, and that...</s>ZAHN: But are you denying that they're having children simply so those babies will become U.S. citizens?</s>SALAS: That is not the reason that they're coming to this country....</s>ZAHN: But it's happening, isn't it?</s>TANCREDO: Oh, Ms. Salas, Ms. Salas, that is...</s>SALAS: When -- when individuals work...</s>TANCREDO: You know that is not true.</s>SALAS: ... and when they live in this country, they will, obviously, have families in this country. And that their children are born in this country and that they're citizens, it's because they're here working. And that's the reason people come. They don't come here to have...</s>TANCREDO: Ms. Salas, do you know -- Ms. Salas, do you know that there are people who show up and then -- I'm not talking about individual incidents. I'm talking about by the hundreds over a period of time. There are people who show up at the border, sometimes in an -- in an -- in an ambulance, sometimes just in a car, about ready to give birth, in order to get into this country and have that birth in the United States. Are you telling me they're working here and just by -- just happened to be here at the time that they're pregnant? Of course not. You know, ma'am, that this is happening. You cannot suggest that this is not a huge problem.</s>SALAS: I think that any parent wants the very best for their children. And if it means that, across the border, they are going to have a better life because they are citizens, I think any parent will want the best for their child. However, I do not concede that this is the reason that people...</s>ZAHN: All right.</s>SALAS: ... are coming to this country.</s>ZAHN: Let me ask you this, Congressman Tancredo. We know that it would be...</s>TANCREDO: My God.</s>ZAHN: ... all but impossible to...</s>TANCREDO: Well, we don't even have a starting point here.</s>ZAHN: ... to round up 11 million undocumented workers. And there are folks that say that, if you did that, the U.S. economy would come to a grinding halt.</s>TANCREDO: OK. Let me -- could I have one more word on this anchor baby issue, however, for just a second?</s>ZAHN: Sure.</s>TANCREDO: You know, Paula, the fact is that the -- we are one of the last countries in the world to continue to do this. Several other countries used to, but threw it away a long time ago. Mexico is the only other country now that allows it. And, really, they don't have much of a problem with people going there to have their babies. But the reality is that it is a huge problem. It's an economic problem. It's also, I think, a -- it's a real issue, in terms of what citizenship really means in the United States. Is it just coming across the line to have your kid and -- and, then, citizenship expands, or is it something more important? In terms of your question about the 11 to 20 million people...</s>ZAHN: Quickly here.</s>TANCREDO: I'm sorry -- I know we have got to close up on this. In -- in fact, all you have to do is go after the employer, stop them from allowing -- I mean, from being the magnet. Don't employ these people, because it's against the law to do so. They will go home. You don't have to round up 11 million people.</s>ZAHN: Ms. Salas, final question for you tonight. If a foreign diplomat has a child here in the United States, that child does not become a U.S. citizen. So, why shouldn't the -- the child of an illegal immigrant mirror the status of his or her parent?</s>SALAS: Because American values basically promote citizen -- birthright citizenship, because we are a nation of immigrants. There have been generations of immigrants that have come to this nation. And birthright citizenship allows us to become -- to continue to be integrated as a nation, so that people from all over the world can actually be united under their citizenship. We are different from any other country in the world, because there is no other country that -- whose -- whose real beginning, its founding, is based on immigrants coming to this nation.</s>ZAHN: All right.</s>SALAS: And these are...</s>ZAHN: We have to leave the debate here this evening. Angelica Salas, Representative Tancredo, thank you for both of your perspectives.</s>SALAS: Thank you.</s>TANCREDO: Thank you very much.</s>ZAHN: And we move on now. Most thieves will take just about anything that isn't nailed down. But the ones we will hear about in a minute went above and beyond anything we have ever heard about before.</s>TONY WALLNOFER, MAINTENANCE DIVISION CHIEF, BALTIMORE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: To be so brazen as to actually go on to the street, set up a work zone, wear hardhats, wear safety vests.</s>ZAHN: So, the question is, why would anybody steal streetlight poles, and not just one or two? We're talking about more than 100. And, a little bit later on, if you were a judge, how would you sentence a woman who abandoned nearly three dozen kittens? Nine of them ended up dying. We are going to hear from a judge who got very creative.</s>TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ted Rowlands in Southern California. Coming up, an amazing story of how this Webcam may have saved this woman's life. Her family, halfway around the world, noticed that she collapsed. They called for help. It is an amazing story. We will have it coming up.