Governor Gavin Newsom signed a California bill that expands privacy protections to nonprofit immigration workers, a measure Republican lawmakers and independent journalists say was designed to punish reporting that exposed hundreds of millions of dollars in alleged fraud.
Assembly Bill 2624, authored by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, a Democrat from Alameda, extends California's Safe at Home program to employees of nonprofits that serve people navigating the immigration system. The program, which already covers domestic violence survivors, elder abuse victims, and reproductive and gender-affirming health care workers, provides substitute mailing addresses for people considered particularly vulnerable to targeted attacks and violent threats. The new law takes effect October 1, 2027.
But the bill's Republican opponents have given it a sharper name. Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, a Republican from San Diego, coined the label "Stop Nick Shirley Act", a reference to the independent journalist and YouTuber whose investigative videos about alleged fraud in immigrant communities drew national attention and, critics argue, prompted the legislation in the first place. The New York Post reported that Newsom signed the bill on Saturday, capping months of heated debate over whether the measure protects vulnerable workers or shields misconduct from public view.
The signing came just days after an incident outside the California State Capitol in Sacramento that crystallized the tensions around the bill. On Wednesday, Shirley was conducting a sidewalk interview when Terry Schanz, chief of staff to Democratic Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, allegedly barged into the conversation. Schanz held up a printed flyer and, according to reporting on the incident, declared: "Did you guys hear that Nick Shirley has a small penis allegedly?"
Schanz earns $17,319 a month in taxpayer-funded compensation, totaling $207,828 a year. Multiple complaints were subsequently filed with the California Legislature's HR department over his conduct. Sacramento television station KCRA reported that Schanz is expected to face consequences.
The sidewalk episode was not Schanz's first brush with controversy. In January, his office faced scrutiny over allegations that it pressured CalMatters, a nonprofit newsroom, to alter footage involving Assemblywoman McKinnor after a reporter asked her a tough question about an expensive designer handbag. And in 2025, a wrongful-termination lawsuit named Schanz and contained allegations of political bullying and a toxic workplace culture within top Assembly leadership.
For critics of AB 2624, the Schanz incident illustrated the very dynamic the bill's opponents fear: state officials using intimidation against journalists who ask uncomfortable questions, while the legislature simultaneously moves to make that kind of reporting legally riskier.
The law carries penalties that go well beyond a slap on the wrist. Breitbart reported that AB 2624 penalizes the distribution of information or images of immigration workers that "incites violence or threats" with fines ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 and potential jail or state prison sentences.
The bill also allows covered participants to sue private citizens for posting their images, with awards up to $4,000. DeMaio framed the stakes in blunt terms.
Fox News quoted DeMaio saying:
"AB 2624 would allow activists and taxpayer-funded organizations to demand the removal of video evidence, even if it captures misconduct in plain view, and threatens journalists with massive financial penalties. That's not about public safety, it's about protecting powerful interests."
Shirley himself has argued the bill was created after he "exposed widespread fraud in immigrant communities" in California and Minnesota. His videos drew enough attention that they triggered federal action. According to Fox News, Shirley's California investigations exposed an alleged $170 million in fraud by hospice care and health care companies, and Vice President JD Vance subsequently announced the suspension of 447 hospices and 23 home health agencies with estimated fraud exceeding $600 million.
Newsom, for his part, had weighed in on Shirley's work months earlier. In February, the governor said Somali daycare providers in Minnesota were "under siege" following Shirley's arrival, a characterization that framed the journalist's reporting as the problem rather than the alleged fraud his videos documented.
Assemblywoman Bonta introduced AB 2624 in February, citing what she described as increased threats and harassment against immigration service providers. On Saturday, she defended the measure in terms that cast the bill's opponents as enablers of extremism.
"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."
Bonta has rejected the characterization offered by Florida Senator Ashley Moody, a Republican who referred to AB 2624 on the Senate floor as the "Protect Fraudsters Act." Bonta has said the law does not conflate legitimate journalism with the conduct targeted by Safe at Home, though the bill's text penalizes the distribution of images and information broadly enough that critics see little daylight between the two.
Bonta is also the wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a detail that sharpens the political optics. The state's top law enforcement officer's spouse authored a bill that opponents say criminalizes the kind of investigative work that led to federal fraud suspensions, a dynamic that mirrors broader questions about political accountability in California's Democratic establishment.
Shirley put the stakes in personal terms. Fox News reported him saying: "They're literally willing to impose a $10,000 fine or imprisonment if you go and seek to find out the truth about a location that could potentially be fraudulent inside your own neighborhood."
The sequence of events tells its own story. An independent journalist films videos alleging fraud in immigrant-serving nonprofits. Federal authorities act on the findings, suspending hundreds of agencies and identifying more than half a billion dollars in suspected fraud. The state's governor describes the journalist's presence as putting workers "under siege." A Democratic assemblywoman introduces a bill that would fine and potentially imprison people who distribute images of the very workers whose organizations were flagged for fraud. A senior legislative staffer earning more than $200,000 a year in taxpayer money confronts the journalist outside the state capitol with a crude personal flyer. And then the governor signs the bill into law.
The fight has now reached Washington. Senator Moody's "Protect Fraudsters Act" label may have been designed for cable news, but it captures a real concern: that California is using the machinery of government to raise the cost of asking questions the state would rather not answer.
California's political culture has long treated scrutiny from the right as an attack rather than an accountability check. The state's Democratic leadership has repeatedly framed federal investigations as partisan overreach rather than engaging with the underlying facts.
AB 2624 fits the pattern. When investigative reporting reveals potential fraud in taxpayer-funded programs, the response from Sacramento is not to investigate the fraud more aggressively. It is to make the reporting harder, costlier, and legally dangerous.
The bill does not take effect until October 2027, leaving a window for legal challenges. First Amendment advocates and press freedom organizations will have time to test whether a law that penalizes the distribution of images and information, even images capturing misconduct, can survive constitutional scrutiny. The broader political landscape is shifting as well, with Democratic incumbents losing ground in races across the country, in part because voters have grown skeptical of a party that appears more interested in managing narratives than managing government.
Meanwhile, Schanz's HR complaints remain unresolved. The wrongful-termination lawsuit from 2025 hangs over the Assembly. And Nick Shirley, the independent journalist a sitting governor and a state legislature apparently decided was too effective, keeps filming.
When the government's answer to documented misconduct is to punish the people who documented it, taxpayers should ask whose interests Sacramento is actually protecting.
