Huntington Beach is suing California over its so-called sanctuary state law, re-upping a previously failed challenge over the limits placed on local police from assisting federal immigration officials.

The city filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court. Mayor Pat Burns in a news release announcing the suit said the law “obstructs our ability to fully enforce the law and keep our community safe.”

“(We) need every possible resource available to fight crime, including federal resources,” Burns said in a statement. “Huntington Beach will not sit idly by and allow the obstructionist sanctuary state law to put our 200,000 residents at risk of harm from those who seek to commit violent crimes on U.S. soil.”

The California Values Act, or SB 54, places restrictions on the use of state and local resources to assist federal immigration enforcement.

Calling SB 54 unconstitutional, City Attorney Michael Gates argues it violates other federal laws.

“The sanctuary state law forces city officials, including Huntington Beach police personnel, to harbor, conceal or ‘shield from detection’ known unauthorized aliens in their custody,” the city’s complaint reads. “The sanctuary state law commands city officials, including Huntington Beach police personnel, to turn a blind eye to alien smuggling, which in many cases, the individuals who were smuggled into the country would become victims of human trafficking.”

The city wants the court to invalidate the state law and issue an order allowing city officials to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

“The attorney general is committed to protecting and ensuring the rights of California’s immigrant communities and upholding vital laws like SB 54, which ensure that state and local resources go toward fighting crime in California communities, not toward federal immigration enforcement,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said in a statement. “Our office successfully fought back against a challenge to SB 54 by the first Trump administration, and we are prepared to vigorously defend SB 54 again. Beyond that, we are reviewing the complaint and will respond appropriately in court.”

The California Values Act went into effect in 2018. Huntington Beach sued that year in state court saying the city should not have to comply with the restrictions because of its charter city status.

Ultimately, an appeals court said it must.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 ruled that SB 54 did not conflict with federal law after a legal challenge from the Trump Administration.

Mai Do, research and policy manager with the Harbor Institute for Immigrant & Economic Justice, was confident this suit will be a losing battle, too.

“For a lot of immigrant refugee communities right now, seeing politicians in Huntington Beach and other localities take advantage of people’s concerns about safety is, yes, a little bit anxiety-inducing,” Do said. “But at the same time, it’s not like we haven’t been here before. We know their strategy. We understand they will always try to lean into rhetorical tools and fear-mongering rather than effectively govern.”

The legal efforts to take down sanctuary laws are really efforts to scapegoat immigrant communities, Do added.

“Instead of doing things like stabilizing housing costs or allowing for more housing construction, making streets more pedestrian friendly to reduce injuries and deaths, supporting our educational library institutions as effective crime-reducing institutions, these politicians are pointing their fingers at our immigrant neighbors and relying on fear-mongering to distract from their failures to govern,” Do said.

America First Legal Foundation, led by Stephen Miller, who will be President-elect Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, recently warned elected and law enforcement officials in sanctuary jurisdictions throughout the country to not interfere with federal immigration law enforcement and suggested there would be potential consequences.

The foundation is paying for legal expenses in another Huntington Beach lawsuit against the state over a new state law that prohibits school districts from implementing forced gender identity disclosure policies.

Staff Writer Destiny Torres contributed to this report.