[Lemon:] Back to our breaking weather news in just a moment. We want to tell you about some other news now. A new Arizona state law targeting illegal immigrants has reignited a long running and emotional debate. Arizona's governor yesterday signed a bill that's being called one of the toughest in the country. It requires immigrants to carry their registration documents with them at all times and it requires police to question anyone they suspect is in the U.S. illegally. It also targets the businesses that hire illegal day laborers. CNN's Thelma Gutierrez is standing by now for us in Phoenix. Thelma, thank you for joining us. Are things winding down now at the capitol?
[Thelma Gutierrez, Cnn Correspondent:] Don, there are definitely not as many people here at the state capitol as there were yesterday. However, later tonight, another candlelight vigil is planned. Now, the vigil, the protests all been organized by students activists, and while this is just one opinion on a very complicated immigration issue. They're definitely leading the charge to fight back.
[Gutierrez:] After the hurt and anger over S.B. 1070, student leaders in Arizona jumped into action.
[Christian Vito, Student:] My name's Christian Vito. I attend South Mountain High School. I'm 18 years old and I'm organizing a group to protest against the law. JESSUP FINO,
[Student:] My name's Jessup Fino and I'm a youth organizer here in Arizona. And we're going to kick off the summer of hope, it will be 90 days of organizing and getting people together.
[Gutierrez:] This generation of student activists are social media savvy. And their message of protests is going viral.
[Unidentified Female:] What we're doing is we're using databases. We're using text messaging systems and doing phone banks. We have thousands and thousands of people looking on to us for what is next.
[Gutierrez:] Jeff Sabino, an Arizona State University graduate student in public policy is organizing a coalition of college students to fight the law that was signed Friday by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. JEFF SABINO,
[Arizona State University Graduate Student:] As soon as she signed that bill, it shook the hornet's next. It awoke not only Arizona, not only our community, but the nation. We have solidarity events going on in North Carolina, and Denver, and New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, D.C. and New York. People are all flooding us with support and I think we need to garner that support.
[Gutierrez:] Back on the streets of Phoenix, Christian Brito led a chorus of high school protesters from a pick-up truck. They are students who fear that the new law will pry apart their families and separate friends. CHRISTIAN BRITO,
[Student:] And if we get deported, you know, we lose a part of each other. There's some, a piece of our heart that they're taking with them.
[Gutierrez:] Brito, a high school senior says for him this is personal.
[Brito:] My dream is to become a Marine. I want to serve this country. I want to serve everybody in it. I want to help them and I want to protect them.
[Gutierrez:] Christian Brito is in a youth training program for aspiring Marine recruits. He says after high school, he hopes to defend the U.S. constitution, even though he believes that the law in his own state is unconstitutional.
[Don Lemon, Cnn Anchor:] And Thelma I understand that the challenge to this new law may come from city hall right there in Phoenix?
[Gutierrez:] Yes, exactly, Don. In fact that challenge is suspected to come from Phoenix's mayor, Phil Gordon. He says that on Tuesday, he will direct his city attorney to file a legal action possibly against the state that would ask for this law not to take effect also declaring it unconstitutional. Don.
[Lemon:] Thelma, thank you very much. We appreciate it. We want to get back now to our breaking news. We told you about the situation that's happening in the south and even in the Midwest as far up as Missouri. We want to get to our Ed Henry now who is joining us by telephone. Ed is traveling with President Barack Obama in Ashville, North Carolina. Ed, you have been briefed, he has been briefed, I should say, on this situation. What can you tell us?
[Ed Henry, Cnn Senior White House Correspondent:] That's right, Don. We've got a little bit of information, obviously the White House paying close attention to CNN, now reporting at least seven deaths from these tornadoes. I just spoke to White House spokesman, Phil Gordon, who is traveling with the president here. He said of course, the president has been briefed in the tragedy in Mississippi and the situation is being followed by the White House. Obviously, we're trying to get more information right now as we are gathering exactly how terrible this tragedy is, the president and the first lady with some of their friends who are traveling here in North Carolina have been at the Biltmore Estate
[Lemon:] Yes, absolutely. And you hear about seven dead from something like this, the president usually speaks out about it. Our Ed Henry traveling with the president who's on vacation in Ashville, North Carolina. The president has been briefed on this and we will be checking back with Ed to see if there's any more information. So, listen, we are following this situation that's happening in the south. A line of storms, really beat a path through the south today. We are told killing at least seven people. I'm being told joining us by telephone now is Governor Haley Barbour, Mississippi governor. Thank you so much for joining us. We understand that you were home in Yazoo City when this happened. Did you see any of it? If so, what did you do right after?
[Voice Of Gov. Haley Barbour, Mississippi:] Actually we were on the road between Jackson and Yazoo City, trying to get to Yazoo as soon as after the storm hit. The storm hit about 10 minutes after 12 central time and we got there about 30 minutes later. But this is a gigantic storm, this tornado in places appeared to be several miles wide. It set down on the ground in Madison Parrish, Louisiana, and crossed the river into Mississippi, hit Eagle Lake. By the time I got to the edge of the city,
[Lemon:] Governor, listen, you're saying five and you're still checking on, and this is according to our check here, and, you know, it would be great if this number goes down. We're hearing seven and here's what we're hearing. We're hearing three in Yazoo, one in Holmes, three in Choctaw and two of those three in Choctaw, sadly children.
[Barbour:] Well, I was going say the five number is for Yazoo County, though one of the the Holmes county, the way Yazoo and Holmes county meet, it's in a big rural area and there was a lot of damage in there, so it could have been on either side of the county line. But, yes, I was led to believe that there might be fatalities in Choctaw county.
[Lemon:] And with those children, you know, when this thing comes through, when things like this, you know, a tornado, there's really not much you can do unless you get some warning and get out of the way and many times, most times there's no warning. You get the storm system warning but you don't know what's going to happen after that.
[Barbour:] Yes. There was the the weather service did a very good job on this and there was a lot of effort but nevertheless, particularly for people who live in rural areas or children anywhere, they just may not have been made aware. But I can tell you the devastation for this storm, there was some people killed who knew it was coming. I mean, this storm was very powerful and enormous.
[Lemon:] You say they knew it was coming.
[Barbour:] I will bet you there were people who were killed who knew it was coming because you could have gotten in the closet inside your house and still not have been saved.
[Lemon:] Yes. But sometimes there's nothing you can do, especially when the whole structure is demolished as we're looking at these pictures and you're talking, governor. Hey, listen, I want to ask you this, we're going to get back and talk about the folks there, but I got this from the Mississippi Emergency Management, governor, and it just goes on to list the counties here, Choctaw, Desoto, Holmes, Jasper, homes damaged, trees down and destruction, on and on and on a big portion of your state. And as I said to you representative earlier. I know you guys go plan for this, when something like this happens, especially during tough economic times, it costs a lot of money, do you have the resources to deal with this? Are you reaching out to anyone in Washington maybe for some federal funds?
[Barbour:] We do have resources to deal with it. However several of these areas we anticipate will qualify for federal disaster assistance. We will begin in earnest Monday, putting together the figures that are required for the federal government to make that determination. We already have people who have arrived in Mississippi from FEMA, the federal government. So right now, we're still on the search and rescue effort, you may not your listeners may not know it, but the areas you talked about, many of those counties were the same tornado, one line, but then Desoto, Jasper, we have other parts of the state that were hit by other tornadoes. We had a big, big swathe of bad weather that went through here and spawned a lot of tornadoes, not only in Mississippi, but probably in Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama as well. But yet, we have got the resources to help our people. We're putting the National Guard on the ground tonight for security. Won't be any looting here. And then hopefully some of these people will qualify for the federal programs because they're very beneficial.
[Lemon:] Hey, governor, don't go anywhere. I just want to update our viewers, so they know who they're listening to. You're listening to the governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, who is joining us by phone, who is not far away when this tornado, this devastating tornado came through the state and really just not knocked out a big portion of the state. Trees, you can see, power lines in that video, many structures we're getting word that seven people have died and that is from officials in Mississippi, but there are still, still many areas there as we were told by the governor's spokesperson that they can't get to. So they may find more damage. So governor, let's continue real quickly and talk about the people of Mississippi and beyond. If people are watching, especially in areas that are in the path of this storm, your advice?
[Barbour:] Well, this storm system spun off some powerful, powerful tornadoes. We live in a part of the country where we have tornadoes. But the one that hit Yazoo City, Mississippi and stayed on the ground for about 150 miles was a huge tornado in width and extremely powerful. It went through some very hilly land, we don't have mountains in our state, but it went through a lot of changes in elevation and never got up off the ground for any appreciable length of time. It is a bad or it was a bad, bad, devastating tornado. Worse than we're used to, I would say.
[Lemon:] People who are looking for loved ones or information on loved ones, governor?
[Barbour:] The Red Cross is setting up as is the Salvation Army. The Red Cross has two centers in the state that they have set up, one in Yazoo City and one in Vicksburg. I suspect there will be others particularly around Choctaw county where it seems to have been an extremely large amount of damage, what we're seeing here, Don, is a lot of damage in non-metropolitan areas, but areas that have healthy populations. Neighborhoods and lots of people who live on this county road or that county road and so you're seeing that a lot of these areas are hard to get to, particularly if you got 100 trees down every mile. And you got to clear them, and that's the case in many places. We have lots of resources that have been applied here, including as I mentioned earlier, tons of volunteers who we're just pouring out to help their neighbors.
[Lemon:] Governor, listen, thank you very much. One quick question before we let you go, you've got a lot of people who are homeless, without homes, what are you doing for those folks?
[Barbour:] As we say, we have Red Cross shelters that are set up, I will be very surprised if tonight in many areas of Mississippi, you don't have many families who are taking in family members or people that go to their church or people whose kids go to school with their kids, whose kids play Little League with their kids. This is a very, very giving state and our people, particularly because of Katrina bend over backwards to help their neighbors and even to help people they don't know, as was the case so often today in Mississippi. So I don't think we're going to be finding people that don't have a place to be tonight. But we will have a lot of people tonight who are not where they slept last night.
[Lemon:] Well, Governor Haley Barbour, thank you so much for joining us. The governor was near this tornado when it came through, got on the ground and started helping there very quickly and he has just offered some information to you if you want to find loved ones, get in touch with the Red Cross. Governor thank you for your time. You mentioned people who are homeless, they are offering areas for them, from the Red Cross. This is a really big deal. He said they haven't seen a tornado like this ever, according to him. He said it was very unexpected and very big. Mentioning the homeless people. Look at this, this was shot by one of our very own who works here, homeless people there, sitting in the back of what was their property and you see their truck there and that's what they having to deal with tonight in Mississippi and other areas in the southeastern part of this country. Unbelievable. We're going to continue to follow this breaking news and again our thanks to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour for taking the time out to come speak to us here on CNN. A line of storms really beat a path to the south as we have been saying. It left a string of tragedies, communities are mourning the dead right now. The very latest on this storm coming up right after the break.