California's governor signed a law that could punish anyone who posts information or images of nonprofit immigration workers with fines up to $50,000 and prison time, and critics say it was written to silence one independent journalist.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2624 into law on Saturday, expanding the state's "Safe at Home" program to cover employees of nonprofits that help people navigate the U.S. immigration system. The bill, introduced in February by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, an Alameda Democrat, penalizes anyone who distributes or posts information or images of immigration workers in a way that "incites violence or threats." Violators face fines ranging from $10,000 to $50,000, plus sentences from one year in county jail to state prison time.
Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio of San Diego coined the nickname that stuck: the "Stop Nick Shirley Act." The bill, he argued, is meant to intimidate people "trying to shine light on bad behavior." The law does not take effect until October 1, 2027, by which point Newsom, limited by term limits, will no longer hold office.
Nick Shirley is an independent journalist and YouTuber who built a large audience earlier this year with viral videos alleging fraud at daycare nonprofits in the Somali community in the Minneapolis metropolitan area. His reporting drew enough attention that Newsom himself weighed in during February, claiming Somali daycare providers in Minnesota were "under siege" following Shirley's arrival.
After his Minnesota videos spread, Shirley traveled to San Diego and continued his work in California. He alleged that AB 2624 "was created only after he 'exposed widespread fraud in immigrant communities' in California and Minnesota," Breitbart reported.
Bonta rejected that characterization. On Saturday, she framed the bill as a safety measure, not a press restriction.
"Our immigrant service providers are living in fear because of extremists looking to demonize the work that they do and the populations they serve. That is an intolerable consequence of the anti-immigrant rhetoric that exists right now."
That framing asks voters to accept a premise: that documenting how taxpayer-funded nonprofits operate amounts to extremism, and that the correct response is criminal penalties for the people doing the documenting. Bonta did not address the specific fraud allegations Shirley raised. She addressed the "rhetoric."
California's Safe at Home program already existed before AB 2624. It provides substitute mailing addresses for people considered especially vulnerable to targeted attacks and violent threats. The program previously covered domestic violence survivors, elder abuse victims, and workers in reproductive and gender-affirming health care.
AB 2624 adds a new category: employees of nonprofits that help people navigate the immigration system. The expansion means these workers can shield their personal information from public view under the same protections designed for abuse victims. And anyone who posts their information or images in a way the state deems inciting could face prosecution.
DeMaio and other critics see a clear pattern. A program created to protect battered women is being stretched to shield government-adjacent nonprofit workers from public scrutiny, particularly the kind of scrutiny that goes viral and embarrasses Sacramento.
Days before Newsom signed the bill, the controversy around Shirley produced a scene outside the California State Capitol in Sacramento that underscored the hostility directed at the journalist from inside the statehouse itself.
On Wednesday, Terry Schanz, chief of staff to Democratic Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, interrupted Shirley while he was conducting an interview outside the Capitol. Schanz held up a printed flyer and, according to reporting attributed to the New York Post, made a crude public statement about the journalist:
"Did you guys hear that Nick Shirley has a small penis allegedly?"
Schanz earns $17,319 per month in taxpayer-funded compensation. Multiple complaints were filed against him with the legislature's human resources department following the incident. The content of those complaints and the identity of the filers have not been disclosed.
A senior legislative staffer, paid by California taxpayers, walked outside the Capitol to publicly harass a journalist whose reporting had embarrassed nonprofit organizations aligned with the Democratic majority. That same week, the governor signed a law that could criminalize the kind of reporting Shirley does. The sequence is worth noting plainly: the legislature's own staff acted to intimidate the journalist, and the legislature's own bill now backs that intimidation with the force of law.
AB 2624's penalty structure is not modest. A $10,000 fine at the low end. Up to $50,000 at the top. One year in jail, or state prison time. These are penalties attached to distributing information or images that "incites violence or threats", language that leaves enormous room for interpretation by prosecutors and judges sympathetic to the political class the bill protects.
The bill does not define "incites" with the precision that the First Amendment typically demands. It does not distinguish between a journalist filming a nonprofit worker committing fraud and a bad actor doxxing someone to invite harm. That ambiguity is not a drafting oversight. It is the mechanism. A journalist or citizen watchdog who posts video of a nonprofit worker mishandling public funds now has to wonder whether a prosecutor will decide the post "incited" something.
And the people most likely to face that risk are the ones doing exactly what Shirley did: showing up with a camera, asking questions, and publishing what they find.
AB 2624 does not take effect until October 1, 2027. By then, Newsom will have left the governor's office due to term limits. He signed a law whose consequences he will never have to administer or defend. Whatever enforcement controversies arise, whatever First Amendment challenges get filed, whatever journalists or citizens get charged, will land on someone else's desk.
That timeline also means the law was never urgent. Bonta introduced it in February. Newsom signed it in August. It does not take effect for more than a year. If nonprofit immigration workers were truly "living in fear" right now, as Bonta claimed, the legislature chose a remedy that offers them no protection for fourteen months. The timeline suggests the bill's real purpose is not immediate safety but long-term deterrence, a warning shot aimed at anyone who might follow Shirley's example.
Shirley's fraud allegations against nonprofit daycare operations in Minnesota and California remain unresolved in either direction. They have not been officially confirmed, and they have not been officially refuted. Sacramento's answer was not to investigate the allegations. It was to pass a law making it harder and riskier to raise them.
When the government's response to embarrassing journalism is not a rebuttal but a criminal statute, the problem is not the journalist.
