- Independent journalist Nick Shirley, backed by America First Legal, sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Sept. 4 in federal court in Sacramento, asking a judge to block AB 2624 before it ever takes effect.
- AB 2624 folds workers at immigration support organizations into California's Safe at Home address-confidentiality program starting Oct. 1, 2027, letting them hide their home addresses and sue anyone who publishes their personal information anyway.
- Shirley's suit argues the law's written takedown-demand system amounts to unconstitutional, viewpoint-based speech regulation — not a neutral privacy measure, despite a lopsided final vote in the Assembly that outlets have reported inconsistently.
- CHIRLA, the Los Angeles immigrant-rights group that helped push for the bill, says its staff have faced harassment severe enough that a stranger once turned up at director Angelica Salas's mother's home looking for her.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom put his signature on a privacy bill on Aug. 22 that almost nobody calls by its official name. Assembly Bill 2624 lets employees of nonprofits, legal clinics and other groups that serve immigrants keep their home addresses out of public records, and it lets them sue anyone who posts that information regardless. Opponents, including the YouTuber the bill is widely believed to target, call it the Stop Nick Shirley Act instead. On Sept. 4, that YouTuber turned plaintiff, asking a federal court to strike the law down before it ever takes effect. The fight matters well beyond one influencer's camera: many of the largest organizations the statute shields — CHIRLA chief among them — primarily serve Latino immigrant families, so how this case ends will shape both the privacy those workers get and the scrutiny their organizations face for years to come.
What AB 2624 Actually Changes
The new law grafts onto a program that is nearly three decades old. Sacramento created Safe at Home in 1998 to keep domestic violence survivors' addresses out of public view, then over the years widened it to cover people fleeing stalking, sexual assault and human trafficking, and later reproductive-health and gender-affirming care workers. AB 2624 adds a new category: employees, volunteers and board members of what the statute calls "designated immigration support services" providers, so long as they can document threats, harassment or violence connected to their work within the past year. Once the Secretary of State certifies an applicant, government agencies must keep the real address off public records, and posting it — or a covered person's phone number, employer or financial details — with intent tied to violence or intimidation opens the poster up to a lawsuit. Under the enrolled bill text, courts must set damages no lower than a $4,000 floor for a proven violation, and up to three times a plaintiff's actual losses if that number is higher, plus attorney's fees.
A Vote Count Worth Flagging
AB 2624 did not clear Sacramento in one tidy vote. Its first Assembly floor passage came on May 26. After Senate hearings and a full Senate floor vote, the measure returned to the Assembly on Aug. 19 for a concurrence vote, which the Legislature's own record lists as 59 ayes to 19 noes, with one member absent. That concurrence vote — not the disputed May tally — is what actually sent AB 2624 to the governor's desk, three days before he signed it.
Shirley's complaint, brought with San Diego attorney John Howard and America First Legal, names Bonta and Weber as defendants and rests on three constitutional theories: a First Amendment speech claim, a Fourteenth Amendment due-process claim, and a claim under the Constitution's ban on after-the-fact punishment. Central to the suit is an argument about symmetry: the statute shields information tied to one side of an ongoing policy fight — immigrant aid work — while leaving identical speech about immigration-enforcement groups untouched. Shirley says he wants no money from California, only an order stopping enforcement. "It's time for We the People to do something," he said in the video announcing his lawsuit.
A Timeline the Complaint Leans On
Much of Shirley's legal argument rests on a specific sequence of dates laid out in his complaint. He announced his arrival in California on Jan. 31 to look into immigration-related nonprofits, and within two days the governor's office suggested his presence was making Somali residents of San Diego feel unsafe, blaming outside agitators. On Feb. 5, the attorney general publicly called Shirley's fraud claims baseless. Eleven days later, Shirley posted a lengthy video of his own findings, and the next day the governor's press shop publicly asked whether he only investigates states run by Democrats. Three days after that needling question, on Feb. 20, Assemblymember Mia Bonta — who is married to the attorney general — introduced AB 2624.
From Somali Daycares to California Hospice Providers
Shirley built his following by walking into unannounced daycare operations serving Minnesota's Somali immigrant community; one facility he flagged, a spot with a hand-painted sign misspelling the word "learning," was later shut down after federal fraud charges. He carried the same tactic into California this year, scrutinizing state-funded Armenian hospice agencies and immigrant-run daycare operators. Confronted on camera about whether her marriage to the state's top prosecutor created a conflict of interest, the bill's author brushed the question aside, saying California simply refuses to indulge misinformation.
Why Immigrant and Latino Communities Have a Stake
Nothing in AB 2624 limits its protections to workers serving any single nationality. Still, several of California's biggest and oldest immigration nonprofits — CHIRLA foremost among them — mostly serve Latino families, and CHIRLA did not sit on the sidelines of this debate: it co-sponsored the bill after its own employees became targets. Executive Director Angelica Salas told the Assembly Privacy Committee that strangers had staked out her office demanding staff names, and that someone hunting for her once showed up at her mother's home instead. "It happened to me and happened to a family member," she testified. Skeptics point out CHIRLA is far from a neutral party here: the organization pulls in millions of taxpayer dollars annually and lost its Department of Homeland Security grants in 2025, giving it its own interest in how closely outsiders can examine its work.
The Case Bonta's Office Makes for the Law
Assemblymember Bonta's office rejects the premise that the bill has anything to do with reporters. An August statement from her office insisted the law leaves public filming alone, does not touch investigative journalism, and only ever applies to people who voluntarily enroll and get certified. "AB 2624 is fundamentally about freedom," she said once Newsom signed it, framing worker safety and press freedom as complementary rather than opposed goals. State Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican, isn't convinced the law stays in that lane. "We need to protect people from genuine threats," he wrote on the day of the signing, adding that lawmakers must simultaneously protect people who investigate government waste. He has pointed to the mandatory $4,000 damages floor as proof the statute carries real financial risk for reporters, not merely for harassers.
What Comes Next
Because AB 2624 does not take effect until Oct. 1, 2027, Shirley's case has more than a year to play out before the confidentiality program he opposes even exists. No hearing date has surfaced publicly as of this week, and neither the attorney general's office nor the secretary of state's office has issued a statement responding to the suit. The dispute has already moved beyond legal filings: a late-August rally against the law outside the state Capitol drew counterprotesters, and a local video journalist who filmed the scene said he personally witnessed several physical altercations. For now, the question of who gets to stay anonymous — and who gets to keep a camera rolling — belongs to a single federal judge in Sacramento.
