California ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ backed by migrant group tied to anti-ICE riots

Activists tied to last summer’s anti-deportation riots in California successfully lobbied for a new state law advertised as protecting nonprofit groups from threats or harassment.Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed Assembly Bill 2624 on Saturday, allowing immigration services groups’ addresses to be shielded from public records and criminalizing publishing their information with the intent to incite threats against them. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, co-sponsored and testified for the bill before the state legislature passed it to the governor’s desk. The taxpayer-funded charity drew Republican scrutiny after its “Los Angeles Rapid Response Network” led to a union leader’s arrest that sparked fiery protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in June 2025.Conservatives mockingly referred to the bill as the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” as it came in response to the conservative YouTuber posting a video investigation in March of alleged fraud by taxpayer-funded California nonprofit organizations. The content creator made a name for himself with a style focused on confronting employees of taxpayer-funded entities in person. “We thank Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature for standing with the people who stand with immigrant communities and for signing AB 2624, the Privacy for Immigration Support Services Providers bill, into law,” CHIRLA Executive Director Angelica Salas told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “At a time when immigration service providers, advocates, and volunteers face growing harassment, intimidation, doxxing, and threats simply for helping immigrant families, California is sending a clear message: those who serve our communities should not have to choose between doing their jobs and protecting their personal safety.” “This is a meaningful step toward ensuring that the people helping families navigate an increasingly hostile immigration system can continue their work without fear,” Salas said. “We are grateful to Assemblymember Mia Bonta for authoring this important legislation and to the legislative leaders and partners who helped carry it across the finish line. California has once again demonstrated that protecting immigrant communities also means protecting the people who serve them.”The nonprofit launched its rapid response group in January 2025 to deploy activists to the scene of ICE raids, according to multiple reports. Service Employees International Union leader David Huerta and others in the network responded to immigration operations in June 2025 by physically blocking federal vehicles, leading agents to arrest him. Huerta later admitted to his conduct in federal court in exchange for a chance to have a charge dropped.Huerta’s arrest immediately prompted outrage and a CHIRLA press conference hosted near a federal building the same day. The gathering went awry when a mob began vandalizing the building and pelting law enforcement with objects. The ensuing clashes with police led to days of riots involving assaults, fires, arrests, and at least $32 million in damage to Los Angeles. CHIRLA said it was not responsible for violence despite neglecting to publicly discourage such behavior.The Obama administration helped open CHIRLA up to taxpayer funds by approving it to provide immigration services in 2011. The group took in more than $8.7 million in government funds between July 2024 and July 2025, tax filings show. The Trump administration ended Department of Homeland Security funding for CHIRLA in March 2025.Bonta, AB 2624’s author, described it as merely expanding California’s Safe at Home program, which provides similar confidentiality for workers in fields such as abortion and sex-change procedures.“AB 2624 does not restrict filming in public, does not prohibit investigative journalism, does not modify public records law for organizations, and does not apply to anyone who hasn’t voluntarily enrolled in and been certified by the Safe at Home program,” she said in a Wednesday statement on its passage to Newsom’s desk. “It extends a 28-year-old, court-tested confidentiality program to people who are being followed home and threatened for helping their neighbors.”“All this bill does is protect immigration workers from doxxing and threats,” Newsom’s office said Sunday. “That’s it.”INSIDE THE LEFTIST NETWORK WORKING TO SABOTAGE TRUMP’S DC PROSECUTIONSShirley called the politicians dishonest in a Sunday X post.“This bill was created only after I exposed widespread fraud in immigrant communities across America, specifically in California’s Medicaid, nonprofits and other welfare programs funded by our tax dollars,” the YouTuber said. “These politicians need the fraud to continue and they sadly use immigrants to do so often. They fund nonprofits and NGOs with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year for immigration services, including free healthcare and have now made ‘immigration support service providers’ essentially a protected class in California.”