SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Right-wing content creator Nick Shirley announced Friday that he is suing California officials over the so-called “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” a bill aiming to protect immigration support service providers from doxxing and harassment.

Assembly Bill 2624, named the “Safe at Work Act” by author Mia Bonta, a Democrat, would allow immigration service providers to remove their names and addresses from the public record. Shirley, who gained online notoriety for his videos claiming to uncover fraud in immigrant-run hospice and daycare centers, has argued it will prevent independent journalists from conducting and publishing similar investigations. Republican lawmakers opposed to the bill have rallied behind Shirley, terming the bill the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.”

“(The legislation) makes it harder for investigative reporters like Nick Shirley to do what they’ve done and, quite frankly, I think we need more people looking at how we’re spending our money and more transparency and accountability,” said GOP Sen. Tony Strickland in an interview with The Sacramento Bee.

Conservative legal organization America First Legal filed the complaint on Shirley’s behalf, seeking relief on claims that the bill violates Shirley’s right to free speech under the First Amendment. The suit, which names California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber as defendants, alleges that the bill “imposes content-based and viewpoint-discriminatory restrictions on speech and is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague.”

“In a world where we all want more transparency and not less, it is more critical than ever that we do not just sit back and do nothing,” Shirley said in a video posted to his X account Friday morning. “That is why I am filing this lawsuit against the state of California.”

America First Legal President Gene Hamilton, President Donald Trump’s former deputy White House counsel, founded the organization in 2018 with Stephen Miller, Trump’s current deputy chief of staff for policy. The group aims to “oppose lawless government overreach and fight to restore the rule of law in the United States,” according to its website.

“Nick Shirley is an American patriot. He has been exposing fraud that too many people have tolerated or facilitated for decades,” Hamilton said in a statement. “America First Legal is proud to stand with Nick.”

Shirley first gained internet fame through a viral video last year, in which he claimed to discover more than $100 million in fraud at Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota. While the allegations were disproven by local journalists in some cases, they drew national attention and led to federal immigration crackdowns in Minnesota. A later video posted to Shirley’s YouTube account made similar accusations of widespread fraud at Somali-run hospice centers in San Diego.

After Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law, Shirley and his supporters gathered on the Capitol steps Aug. 25 to rally against the legislation. In a speech at the event, Shirley said that the “battle” against fraud in California is “just starting.”

“Politicians have learned that they can use immigrant communities and use nonprofits and NGOs and funnel millions upon millions of your tax dollars into these (organizations),” Shirley said. “For so long nobody ever looked into them. Then I did. And now they want to prohibit people from being able to go and film these locations to expose it.”

Mia Bonta and other proponents of the measure have maintained that it would only restrict publishing information online with the explicit intent to dox or harass a specific individual.

“It is very clear in the legislation,” Bonta said in an April 21 Assembly committee hearing. “Constitutional free speech protections still fully apply. It does not prevent lawful reporting of matters of public concern, and the bill is narrowly focused on preventing misuse of personal information, not restricting lawful speech.”

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