A Case Study
On February 20, 2026, California Assemblymember Mia Bonta introduced Assembly Bill 2624. In the last week or so, this piece of legislation has taken over almost all of my social media. It is being described as the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” but Nick Shirley and his supporters.
For those who don’t know, Nick Shirley is the young man who has become famous for “exposing” fraud. First in Minnesota and now in California. He went to day care operations in Minnesota and claimed that they were engaged in fraud because they wouldn’t let him in the door and he didn’t see any kids around. He is now turning his camera on California and because a whole bunch of home health and hospice providers are located in the same building … it must be fraud. I have yet to see anything from him that supports the claims of fraud. What he does though is stir up the right-wing with his videos and then he eventually moves on to his next target. All of which involve things he doesn’t understand. But he has found niche and support for what he is doing.
He has posted numerous times about AB 2624 and more and more people are piling on in support of his claims. Here is a tweet he put up today. In this tweet, he claims that journalists will be penalized with misdemeanors, $10,000 fines, content takedown, etc.; that immigrant NGO’s funding will be kept confidential; freedom of press will be taken away; and that "any immigration support services funding” will be kept from the public.
All of those claims are a complete lie and demonstrate that either (a) he has no idea how to read a piece of legislation; or (b) he intentionally is lying to feed his funders and fans. Here is the text of the bill.
What the bill does is provide an opportunity for individuals who work for immigration service providers to apply to keep their personal information, including their address, confidential. Everything about the legislation is tied to people who provide services to immigrants. Contrary to one of the tweets that claimed that the definitions were so broad that it went far beyond just immigration service providers, every definition ties back to immigration services.
The legislation requires that, to be admitted into this program, the individual and/or the immigration services facility they work for have to provide information that they have been subject to threats or harassment, and that they fear for their safety. What the program does is allow the Secretary of State’s office to designate an address for each program participant that can be made public. Think about it this way … when you form an LLC or some other type of corporate entity, you frequently identify an agent for service of process. That person’s name and address are on your corporate documents. Not yours. That’s what they’re trying to do here for immigration service providers.
The legislation prohibits any person, business or association from knowingly publishing the personal information of any individual who has been accepted into this program, if their intent is to do either of the following:
(A) Incite a third person to cause imminent great bodily harm to the designated immigration support services provider, employee, or volunteer identified in the posting or display, or to a coresident of that person, where the third person is likely to commit this harm.
(B) Threaten the designated immigration support services provider, employee, or volunteer identified in the posting or display, or a coresident of that person, in a manner that places the person identified or the coresident in objectively reasonable fear for their personal safety.
Here is where the potential criminal penalties come in:
If a person posts personal information on a covered individual on the internet with the intent that somebody else will imminently use that information to commit a crime involving violence or a threat of violence against a designated immigration support services provider, employee, or volunteer, the person may be subject to a $10,000 fine and/or up to one year in county jail.
If the violation leads to bodily harm against the individual whose information was disclosed, the fine can increase to $50,000, and a longer potential sentence in jail or prison.
That’s it. Any reasonable person would say that this is a nothing burger. That people choose to work for entities that provide services to immigrations should not expose them to doxxing, threats of violence, or “journalists” like Nick Shirley using their information or images to spread their lies.
But, let’s go back to Shirley’s list of things he claims AB 2624 does:
that journalists will be penalized with misdemeanors, $10,000 fines, content takedown, etc.;
Well, only if those journalists are publishing information with the intent of inciting harm towards the individuals exposed. Which doesn’t really sound like a journalist to me.
that immigrant NGO’s funding will be kept confidential;
There is absolutely nothing in AB 2624 that address the funding of immigrant NGOs. Nothing at all.
freedom of press will be taken away;
This is not about the press or journalists, it is about on-line personalities who dox private individuals and expose their identities, then causing their supporters and the true-believers to engage in threatening behavior towards those they disagree with. It has absolutely nothing to do with legitimate journalism or freedom of the press.
and that “any immigration support services funding” will be kept from the public
See above. There is absolutely nothing in this legislation that addresses whether funding should or should not be made public.
The problem is that this take on AB 2624 has become viral. Every right-winger is spreading the word that it does the things Nick Shirley fraudulently claims it does. State Assemblymember Carl DeMaio has tweeted it. DC Draino has tweeted it. Benny Johnson has tweeted it. Gunther Eagleman has tweeted it. Pretty much every right-winger on social media is hammering away at this. And it is all based on a lie about what the legislation does.
Here is what it does. It protects people who are in the immigration service field from being doxxed or from having their information shared on-line because of the risks that would bring to them and their families. That’s it. It doesn’t go after journalists. It doesn’t go after anybody who is engaged in legitimate and respectful reporting. It goes after those people who share personal information with the intent on threatening people who are involved in legitimate work.
This is the world we live in and why I am so pessimistic about our future as a functioning society. There are far too many people willing to push lies and to be dishonest about things like this in pursuit of their partisan agenda. I yearn for the day when honesty and integrity matters more than partisan gain.