The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has filed a brief in a California federal district court opposing California’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit the anti-sanctuary city of Huntington Beach has brought to overturn California’s sanctuary law, which forbids California cities from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
A principal claim in the lawsuit is that California’s law is preempted by federal immigration law. The state law is preempted both because it interferes with federal law enforcement and because it makes officials in Huntington Beach—and Huntington Beach itself—liable for the federal crime of harboring illegal aliens.
The state claims that Huntington Beach’s suit should be dismissed because the city lacks standing to sue. As FAIR shows in its brief, however, the sanctuary law’s fatal conflict with federal law puts city officials in a dilemma: either obey the state law and violate the federal harboring statute, or obey the harboring statute and violate the state law (and lose their jobs). All acknowledge that such an inescapable dilemma constitutes an “injury in fact” sufficient for standing.
“This lawsuit richly deserves to proceed,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of FAIR. “It is absurd to say city officials are not injured by this law when it puts them in legal jeopardy no matter what they do. We hope it is now twilight for this and other sanctuary laws around the country, which are also being challenged right and left by the Trump Administration, and that the court sees this suit’s strong merits, and lets it continue.”
The case is City of Huntington Beach v. State of California, No. 8:25-cv-00026 (C.D. Cal.).
