AB 2624 Explained: What the 'Stop Nick Shirley Act' Actually Says — and Why Both Sides Are Talking Past Each Other

Nick Shirley confronts the California legislators behind AB 2624 April 18, 2026 · 25 minutes · Click to play

In February 2026, Democratic California Assemblymember Mia Bonta of Oakland — wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta — introduced Assembly Bill 2624, a measure officially titled “Privacy for immigration support services providers.”

Two months later, Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio of San Diego nicknamed it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” in an official press release, framing it as legislation specifically designed to criminalize the kind of citizen-journalism investigations that made Shirley a household name through his Minnesota daycare and California hospice fraud reporting.

Mia Bonta’s office calls that framing a “malicious and intentional misrepresentation.” Snopes fact-checked the claim and rated it false. Yet the bill exists, the controversy is real, and the constitutional questions are genuine.

This is what AB 2624 actually does, what its penalties really are, what Shirley’s now-viral confrontation video showed, and why both sides — to a remarkable degree — appear to be talking past each other.

The Cast — Who’s Saying What

What AB 2624 Actually Says

The bill text is publicly available at the California Legislative Information portal as Bill ID 202520260AB2624. The substance, in plain language:

1. It extends California’s existing Safe at Home program — a confidential-address program operating in California since 1999, originally created to protect victims of domestic violence — to cover a new category of people: employees, volunteers, and service recipients of organizations that provide “designated immigration support services.” Since 1999 the program has already been extended to reproductive healthcare workers and gender-affirming care providers.

2. Eligible applicants must apply to the California Secretary of State and provide documentation that they have faced threats, harassment, or violence within one year of applying. They must also demonstrate their connection to an immigration support organization. Once certified, participants receive a substitute mailing address that state and local agencies use in place of their real residential address in public records.

3. It restricts publishing the personal information or image of program participants online — but only when done with specific intent. The relevant provision prohibits posting program participants’ personal information or images “with the intent” to “cause imminent great bodily harm” or to place a participant in “objectively reasonable fear” for their safety.

4. It expands existing online-doxxing prohibitions that already apply to the protected categories above (domestic violence survivors, reproductive healthcare workers, gender-affirming care providers) to cover this new category.

5. The bill explicitly acknowledges in its own text that “this act imposes a limitation on the public’s right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies” under the California Constitution.

That last point — the bill’s own statement that it limits public-records access — is the substantive constitutional question critics have raised. Whether the limitation is narrow (only home addresses of qualifying threatened individuals) or broad (a chilling effect on investigative reporting on immigration NGOs) is the actual disagreement.

The Penalty Structure Critics and Defenders Disagree About

Both sides agree the bill includes civil penalties starting at $4,000 and potential criminal misdemeanors with fines up to $10,000 and jail time up to one year for prohibited posting of program participant information.

Where they disagree is on what triggers those penalties. Bonta’s office published a fact sheet stating the penalties “require demonstrated intent to incite imminent great bodily harm or place a program participant in objectively reasonable fear for their safety. Investigative journalism such as visiting locations, filming in public, publishing reports does not meet that standard and is not touched by this bill.”

DeMaio and Shirley argue the “objectively reasonable fear” language is broad enough that an investigation into a specific NGO — naming participants, showing faces, filming locations — could be construed as triggering the penalty regardless of journalistic intent. The bill’s own acknowledgment that it limits public-records access is, in their reading, the smoking gun.

“You read the bill, and you realize that it’s against the First Amendment. It criminalizes citizen investigative journalists who take video and expose fraud.” — Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego)

“This characterization has no basis in the bill’s text, legislative history, or author’s intent. AB 2624 is targeted at doxxing individuals’ home addresses and personal information with intent to incite violence — conduct with no overlap with investigative work.” — Office of Assemblymember Mia Bonta (press release, April 17, 2026)

Shirley’s Confrontation Video — What Actually Happened

On April 18, 2026, Shirley published an approximately 25-minute video on his YouTube channel titled “Nick Shirley Confronts Authors of the Stop Nick Shirley Act.” In it, he walks the halls of the California State Capitol in Sacramento and approaches multiple Democratic legislators — including the bill’s author, co-sponsors, and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.

Notably absent from the video: Mia Bonta herself. As Shirley reports in the video, the author was not present at the Capitol that day. Per the Daily Caller: when Shirley asked one lawmaker about “the Stop Nick Shirley Act,” the legislator responded, “Well, there is no Stop Nick Shirley Act, but the author is not here today, but I hope you can find her.”

“It was only until I exposed fraud that they actually cracked down on the fraud and made some arrests here, especially with the hospices. And do you know that, if this bill were to pass, it’d make it illegal for someone to go after fraud, especially if it’s based off of immigrants — for instance, Armenians in California?” — Nick Shirley, in the confrontation video

Nick Shirley appears on Fox News to discuss the bill April 2026 · Click to play

The Original Threats the Bill Responds To — Per Sworn Testimony

The single most consequential piece of testimony in the AB 2624 hearing record came from Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). Per the Bonta press release and CalMatters reporting, Salas testified before the Assembly Privacy Committee:

“We received a lot of hate calls, a lot of threats of violence against our organization. I’m personally named consistently, and the threats of violence are extreme. Our staff, just recently, going out to lunch, had people outside asking for their names, asking them questions, really attacking their ability to move from one place to another, trying to get into our office. It happened to me and happened to a family member. They were looking for me and ended up in my mother’s home. There’s so many of my colleagues where individuals have shown up to their home, who have been threatened, and this is not just our organization, but many others.”

What Snopes Found

Snopes published a fact-check titled “California bill dubbed ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ wouldn’t ‘criminalize investigative journalism.’” The conclusion, in summary:

• The bill exists — verified.
• The “Stop Nick Shirley Act” nickname exists — verified, originated with DeMaio’s April press release.
• The bill text mentions Shirley, journalism, investigations, or fraud — false. It does not.
• The claim that the bill would criminalize investigative journalism — rated false, on the grounds that the penalties require demonstrated intent to incite violence or create reasonable fear, which mainstream journalism activities do not meet.

Snopes did not address the broader chilling-effect argument — whether the threat of being construed as triggering the penalty discourages investigations even if no successful prosecution would occur. That question is constitutional rather than factual and remains genuinely contested.

The Snopes fact-check is itself disputed by DeMaio’s office, which argues the bill’s “objectively reasonable fear” language is broad enough to capture investigative reporting in practice regardless of how Bonta’s office characterizes it.

The Bill’s Status as of Publication

Per the California Legislature bill tracker:

Co-sponsors per the official bill record include Assemblymembers Isaac Bryan, Sade Elhawary, Josh Lowenthal, and Chris Ward in the Assembly, plus Senators Maria Elena Durazo, Lena Gonzalez, Sasha Renée Pérez, and Susan Rubio in the Senate.

Two Republican Assemblymembers reportedly voted in favor at the floor stage, indicating the bill has received some bipartisan support at intermediate procedural votes despite the high-profile partisan framing.

AB 2624 has been designated a 2026 California Legislative Latino Caucus Priority bill.

Related Coverage and Commentary

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John Carlson Show April 20, 2026

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What’s Actually At Stake

Strip away the partisan framing on both sides and three concrete questions remain:

1. Does the bill text criminalize journalism on its face? No. The Snopes fact-check is correct that the literal language requires intent to cause violence or reasonable fear, which mainstream investigative journalism activities do not meet.

2. Could the bill be used in practice to deter investigative reporting on immigration-services NGOs through the chilling effect of potential litigation? Genuinely contested. The bill’s own acknowledgment that it limits public-records access is real. Whether organizations facing investigative coverage would attempt to invoke the bill’s provisions, and whether courts would entertain those invocations, is unknown until the law is in force and tested.

3. Is the underlying problem the bill responds to real? Per sworn testimony from Salas and other immigrant-services workers, yes — they describe specific incidents of being followed home, having relatives approached, and receiving credible threats. Per Shirley’s reporting and mainstream press coverage of California hospice fraud, the alleged fraud he investigates is also real and largely uncontested at the level of the underlying scheme even where Shirley’s specific framing is disputed.

The actual policy question — can California protect immigration-services workers from genuine doxxing-driven harassment without creating a tool that could chill legitimate investigative reporting on taxpayer-funded NGOs? — is largely missing from the public debate. Both sides have hardened positions that pre-empt that question.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bigger Picture

The AB 2624 debate sits at the intersection of three real and unresolved tensions:

Doxxing is a real harm. California has spent 27 years building the Safe at Home program in response to documented cases of stalking, intimidation, and violence against people in protected categories. Sworn testimony from immigration-services workers describes the same pattern of incidents. Pretending the underlying problem is invented serves no one.

Investigative journalism on taxpayer-funded NGOs is a legitimate public interest. Citizen journalists like Shirley have, on multiple occasions across multiple states, surfaced patterns of alleged fraud that mainstream reporting initially missed. The California hospice cases, the Minnesota daycare cases, and the broader pattern of regulatory inattention they highlighted are documented by mainstream outlets that arrived at the story later. Pretending citizen journalism has no public benefit also serves no one.

The First Amendment limits how broadly a state can write rules that restrict speech about specific organizations or people, even when the state’s underlying purpose is legitimate. Whether AB 2624’s specific drafting threads that needle correctly, or whether it sweeps too broadly in practice, is exactly the kind of question that would be tested in court if and when the law is enacted and enforced.

For citizens trying to evaluate the bill on its merits rather than its branding, the operational reality is: read the bill text yourself at the California Legislative Information portal under bill ID 202520260AB2624. Read Bonta’s defense. Read DeMaio’s critique. Watch Shirley’s confrontation video. Read the Snopes fact-check. The question of whether the bill’s “objectively reasonable fear” standard would chill legitimate investigative reporting in practice cannot be resolved by either side’s framing — only by the bill’s eventual enforcement, if it becomes law.

Take Action

The bill is currently moving through the California Legislature. If you have an opinion either way:

• Find your California legislator at findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov
• Read the full bill text at California Legislative Information Bill ID 202520260AB2624
• Read Mia Bonta’s full defense in her April 17, 2026 press release “Setting the Record Straight on AB 2624”
• Read Carl DeMaio’s full critique at his Assembly Republican Caucus website
• Read the Snopes fact-check at snopes.com/fact-check/california-stop-nick-shirley-act

Disclaimer: This article summarizes a public legislative debate. Both sides’ positions are presented with their own framing and qualifications attached. Nothing in this article should be interpreted as a finding of fact about the actual constitutional status of AB 2624 — that question can only be resolved by California courts if the bill is enacted and challenged. Named legislators are public figures discussing public legislation. Where allegations of motive are reported, they are attributed to the source making them and qualified accordingly. The Angelica Salas testimony is attributed to her sworn statement before the Assembly Privacy Committee. AllegedFraud.com archives citizen journalism and does not independently verify allegations made by content creators. If you are a named party and wish to respond, contact contact@allegedfraud.com.