Biden is ordering Border Patrol and ICE to break the law, says former Kansas secretary of state

Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers "hate" being forced to break the law by the Biden administration, said former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is representing an association of ICE officers and a group of Texas sheriffs in a lawsuit against the administration for not enforcing immigration law.

According to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), Kobach said on the John Solomon Reports podcast Monday, all discretion with regard to removing illegal immigrants from the country was taken away from the executive branch. The law simply says to detain and remove illegal immigrants.

"[T]he Biden administration's just ignoring the law and actually ordering ICE officers and Border Patrol officers to disregard the law, to violate the law," Kobach said. "And that has a really deleterious effect on Texas counties and sheriffs because they are no longer taking custody of, and deporting, dangerous alien criminals."

He added that these illegal immigrants have "very long criminal records" and "have committed really atrocious crimes," such as sex crimes against minors, assaults on officers, and weapons violations.

While ICE would have previously made the detaining and removal of these illegal immigrants a top priority, now the Biden administration has told them not to take illegal immigrants that sheriffs have detained.

Kobach brought the lawsuit in July and is hoping the federal district judge will rule "any day now" on a preliminary injunction motion that is pending. He added that the Biden administration is trying to get the case kicked out of the court so they can have it brought in front of a more activist court.

The former Kansas secretary of state said that the Biden administration's argument is simply that "the executive branch always get to do whatever we want to do when it comes to enforcing immigration laws."

However, "that's simply not the case," Kobach said, adding that he is "cautiously optimistic" he and his clients will win the case.

If the preliminary injunction is approved, Border Patrol could detain illegal immigrants again, he said.

From the end of January through July, the seven counties represented in the lawsuit have seen crime and arrests more than double compared to the same time last year, Kobach said.

"It's extraordinary how the sheriffs are just totally overwhelmed," he said, explaining that they don't have the resources to handle the illegal immigrants. "They would have to more than double the size of their jails, their personnel. It's a true crisis at the border, and it is not letting up."

Ordering ICE and Border Patrol officers to break the law is "incredibly demoralizing," Kobach said, "because these law enforcement officers, these brave men and women, trained and devoted their careers to enforcing these laws, to protecting the border, to protecting the American public, and to enforce our immigration laws. And now they're being ordered to stand down by the Biden administration.

"The Border Patrol has been transformed into an agency of babysitters and Uber drivers," according to what one Border Patrol officer told Kobach, "and they hate it."

"They didn't train for this," he said. "They wanted to protect the border, not process people into the interior of the United States."

Kobach added, "You have the Biden administration aiding and abetting the violation of law, and of course ordering its agents to break the law, as well."