Mexico Warns Citizens Living in U.S.; Jeff Sessions Takes Over Justice Department.
BOLDUAN: This just in. Mexico has now issued a warning for Mexican citizens living in the United States. Part of the warning is this: Take precautions and stay in contact with the nearest consulate. This comes after the deportation of this Arizona mother of two. Her case has gotten a huge amount of attention. She was convicted -- arrested and convicted for living in the country with false papers, false identification for years. The statement says this: "This case demonstrates a new reality for the Mexican community living in the United States." That mother of two, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, was one of the first undocumented individuals to be deported since President Trump took office." Her 14-year-old daughter spoke out against the decision. Listen here.</s>STEPHANIE GARCIA DE RAYOS, DAUGHTER OF DEPORTED MEXICAN WOMAN: No one should ever go through the pain of having their mom taken away from them. No one should go through their mother's clothes seeing all is they going to need this, is she going to need that? No one should be packing their mother's suitcase.</s>BOLDUAN: That's her daughter. Her children will remain here in the United States with her husband, living in Arizona. Let me bring in right now Matthew Miller. He is a former spokesman for the Justice Department under President Obama. Thanks for coming in.</s>MATTHEW MILLER, FORMER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Thank you.</s>BOLDUAN: What's your reaction? What's your take on this case?</s>MILLER: It's really heartbreaking. When you look at the woman who was deported, she's been here for two decades, she has two children who are American citizens. This is not the type of person who we ought to be prioritizing for deportation from the country, someone who is obviously a longstanding member of the community. Yes, we ought to be sending violent criminals to the front of the line to be sent back to Mexico, but not mothers who are here or the parents of American citizens. I think it's a real heartbreaking and is a real warning of what we're likely to see as immigration policy from the Trump administration.</s>BOLDUAN: Again, but what the administration will say is she broke the law, and this is -- they're putting in place -- they're enforcing immigration law. And kind of, when you take a step back, Matt, you have immigration advocates -- of course, we all remember. They called President Obama the deporter-in-chief because of how many people he deported under his watch. This is one of the first to be deported under President Trump's watch. What's different here?</s>MILLER: So what's different here is, yes, advocates did use that term for President Obama. But then you saw a big shift in the last few years of the administration where, obviously, the DOCA program that he put in place, and then other prioritization or removals. What you see are, yes, she had committed a crime, but it wasn't a violent crime. She was working with false papers, something that millions of people have done. She wasn't a threat to anyone. What I think you see here is, no matter what Trump says I is going to do about immigration, people at these agencies take signals from the White House, and they want to please the president. And I think you're going to see aggressive removal efforts out of ICE because they know that's what the White House wants. So, you see someone, like this mother, who had been checking in with authorities for years, and then suddenly finds herself removed from the country.</s>BOLDUAN: Let me ask you about the ninth circuit's decision to not reinstate the administration's travel ban. Justice attorneys, it was their job, it was their -- they were tasked with arguing this case before the ninth circuit. They lost this case. Where did they go wrong?</s>MILLER: You know, I don't think the president made their case very easy for them in two ways. They did the best they could. But the executive order was, obviously, put together very poorly. It included people who had obvious due process rights in the courts, green cardholders, and they were smacked down very hard by the court for that. Then the president, through his comments outside the court, both in talking about how he would give prioritization to Christian refugees in the future, and then his attacks on the court, I don't think did those lawyers any favors either. And one of the arguments you have to go into court and make is that the president has unreviewable authority in this area, which is the argument they made. When you have a president, who is out attacking judges and showing that he thinks he is accountable to no one, that burden gets even higher for the government, I think. And so, they did their best but --</s>BOLDUAN: One thing the court definitely didn't rule on --- what was the question of was there religious discrimination here?</s>MILLER: No --</s>BOLDUAN: But today, I do want to get your take. It was not long ago that you were over in that Justice Department. Today is Jeff Sessions first full day on the job as attorney general. What can he do to reassure and bring together Justice employees after what was a pretty brutal confirmation process for him?</s>MILLER: I think he needs to do two things. One, he needs to assure people that he is going to enforce the law, and that means enforce all the laws, including civil rights laws that he has been hostile to throughout his career, not just as U.S. attorney but even in the Senate. He could start by reaching out to employees in the Civil Rights Division. He could reach out to civil rights groups that have been hostile to him and try to make peach and assure them that he is going to enforce the law. And, second, he needs to show that he can be independent from the president. That's one of the biggest questions. You have right now the FBI investigating members of the Trump campaign, apparently, still looking at General Flynn's phone calls with the Russian ambassador. Sessions needs to show that he can be independent. And the first way to do that is to recuse himself from those investigations and show he is not going to tamper with them in any way at all.</s>BOLDUAN: At this point, Matt, do Democrats need to give him a chance since he is the attorney general? We have Elizabeth Warren, who obviously spoke out very forcefully against him. She said she believes he would -- he will, would, absolutely discriminate as attorney general. Is it fair to make that judgment when he hasn't even found his office yet?</s>MILLER: We do need to give him a chance. We need to see what he does. But he really needs to show, also, given his track record -- look, it's a longstanding hostility to civil rights. He has been very vocal about it.</s>BOLDUAN: Republicans say in is 20 years in the Senate that he was not hostile to civil rights.</s>MILLER: Yeah, that's just not true. I can tell you how many hearings I sat through where Sessions questioned DOJ witnesses about why they were enforcing civil rights laws. He needs to prove he will actually enforce that law. And I think the burden is on him.</s>BOLDUAN: Well, we will -- and we will watch along with you. Matt, thanks so much.</s>MILLER: Thank you.</s>BOLDUAN: Thanks so much for joining us AT THIS HOUR. "Inside Politics" with John King starts right now.