SAN ANTONIO — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal battle against San Antonio Police Chief William McManus and the city’s top leadership has entered a new phase, with Paxton filing court papers seeking to strip McManus of his job.

In a petition filed last month in a state district court in San Antonio, Paxton alleges that McManus has violated state law by failing to turn over to federal immigration agents immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally.

Paxton has been tangling with McManus and San Antonio in a state district court in Austin since November 2018 over the Alamo City’s handling of immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally. In that lawsuit, Paxton accused McManus of violations of a new state law targeting what conservative critics call “sanctuary cities” for suspect immigrants. The pending lawsuit seeks millions of dollars in damages.

San Antonio City Attorney Andy Segovia describes the latest petition as frivolous and a transparent attempt by Paxton to distract the public from his own legal woes.

The Associated Press has reported that the FBI is investigating renovations made to Paxton’s million-dollar home as part of an ongoing probe into allegations that the state’s highest-ranking attorney illegally helped a wealthy donor.

Last year, much of Paxton’s senior staff accused him of committing crimes to help Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, whom some of the Republican’s former deputies now say had a hand in work done on Paxton’s home. All of Paxton’s accusers then quit or were fired, and four later sued the attorney general under the state’s whistleblower law.

Paul gave $25,000 to Paxton’s 2018 reelection campaign and employed a woman with whom the attorney general allegedly had an extramarital affair, but the full nature of their relationship remains unclear. According to the lawsuit, the woman works as a construction project manager.