Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, now running for Attorney General, says President Joe Biden’s “sanctuary country” orders are helping release into the United States illegal alien child rapists, domestic abusers, and drunk drivers.

Last week, a number of Texas sheriffs and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Division of the Federal Police Foundation filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration for orders it issued in February that prevent ICE agents from arresting and deporting illegal aliens unless they have been recently convicted of an aggravated felony, are terrorists, or are known gang members.

Kobach, representing the Texas sheriffs and the law enforcement group in the case, told KWBW Radio that the Biden orders effectively require ICE agents “to start breaking federal law and the sheriffs are suffering because that has fueled the crisis down and along the border in south Texas.”

Kobach said:

The illegal aliens that the Biden policy is not allowing ICE to take custody of, there are serious criminals among them. Our sheriffs have filed a legal complaint asserting that among the crimes committed by these illegal aliens who are now being allowed to walk on the street [are] rape of a child, aggravated sexual assault of a child, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, larceny, burglary, domestic violence, carrying a prohibited weapon … DUI and the list goes on. [Emphasis added]

The Biden orders, Kobach said, “achieve the abolition of ICE without actually abolishing it” by ordering ICE agents “to do nothing.”

In the lawsuit, the Texas sheriffs allege that they are being forced to release criminal illegal aliens back into American communities because ICE agents are unable to take over custody. The lawsuit states:

Plaintiff sheriffs and Texas counties have experienced a dramatic increase in the influx of illegal aliens and in criminal activity by illegal aliens resulting from the implementation of the unlawful and unconstitutional February 18 Memorandum and the related standdown of federal immigration enforcement.

Prior to the February 18 Memorandum, ICE officers routinely took custody of criminal aliens who, after serving time for the commission of state crimes, were about to be released. ICE officers were contacted by local law enforcement so that ICE could take custody of the aliens upon their release and remove them from the country. Since the issuance of the February 18 Memorandum, in many cases ICE officers have not been permitted to take custody of such criminal aliens. As a result, numerous criminal aliens have been released onto the streets. [Emphasis added]

In addition, since the issuance of the February 18 Memorandum, ICE officers are no longer permitted to take custody of most of the inmates in Plaintiffs’ jails who previously would have been transferred to ICE as a result of the “287(g)” agreements between those counties and ICE (referring to 8 U.S.C. § 1357(g)). [Emphasis added]

In a wide variety of other circumstances, ICE officers are, contrary to federal statute, no longer permitted to remove dangerous illegal aliens who present a criminal threat because those aliens do not fall into the very narrow categories of “cases that are presumed to be priorities” under the February 18 Memorandum. [Emphasis added]

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has also filed a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction against the Biden orders, recently filing an appeal in the Eleventh Circuit after a federal judge denied her request.

Likewise, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen are appealing a decision by a federal judge last month that dismissed their lawsuit against the Biden orders.

The case is Coe v. Biden, No. 3:21-cv-00168 and was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.