California State Assembly Member Mia Bonta, D-Oakland
SACRAMENTO — Independent online journalist Nick Shirley is suing the state of California, asserting Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state's Democratic leadership have trampled his constitutional rights by passing a new state law Shirley asserts was passed specifically to silence him and wall off the "illegal immigration industry" from public scrutiny amid concerns over fraud.
Shirley filed suit in Sacramento federal on Sept. 4, seeking a court order declaring California Democrats violated the Constitution and blocking the state's officers from enforcing the law colloquially known as the "Stop Nick Shirley Act."
Shirley is represented in the action by attorneys from the America First Legal Foundation (AFL), of Washington, D.C., in partnership with attorney John W. Howard and others with the firm of JW Howard/Attorneys Ltd., of San Diego.
“Nick Shirley is an American patriot," said AFL President Gene Hamilton in a statement announcing the legal action.
" He has been exposing fraud that too many people have tolerated or facilitated for decades. California was so threatened by that work that the Attorney General’s own wife introduced a bill to silence Mr. Shirley, in violation of the First Amendment. Gov. Gavin Newsom gladly signed it.
"This will not stand."
Shirley's lawsuit takes aim at the new California state law, formally docketed in the state legislature as Assembly Bill 2624.
AB 2624, dubbed by supporters as the "Immigrant Services Confidentiality Bill" or the "Safe at Work Act," was signed into law by Gov. Newsom on Aug. 22.
The law specifically allows just about anyone who provides legal aid or other "services" or assistance to immigrants to remove their addresses from public records. And anyone who attempts to locate them or draw attention to their "services" could be criminally prosecuted under the law.
The law specifically prohibits a “person, business, or association” from knowingly posting on the internet the address, image or personal information of program participants and certain family members with the intent to “incite a third person to cause imminent great bodily harm to those individuals.”
Violators could be subject to fines of $4,000 per violation.
Democratic supporters say the new law is needed to protect immigrants, their American advocates and their "service providers" from purported harassment and threats.
But from the moment the legislation was introduced by the state lawmaker wife of California's Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, AB 2624 has drawn criticism from Republicans and other observers, who say the law is intended strictly to throttle the ability of Shirley and other journalists from uncovering untold amounts of fraud, waste and abuse that they say is being enabled by California Democrats.
While Democrats have claimed the law isn't targeted at anyone in particular, Shirley and his attorneys say the law's timeline is suspect, at best.
In announcing the lawsuit, they note the introduction of the legislation came just weeks after Shirley began working to post investigative reports claiming to expose millions of dollars worth of fraud in California related to immigration services and hospices run by Somali and Armenian immigrants, in particular.
Shirley's work came after he indicated that he would make reporting on fraud in the Golden State his next target after reportedly exposing fraud worth over $100 million in connection with daycare centers run by Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
That coverage helped to boost Shirley's name and reputation, growing his online following to nearly 2 million followers on Youtube, 1.7 million on X, 3.2 million on Instagram and 1.6 million on TikTok.
Almost immediately upon focusing his investigations on California, prominent Democratic politicians, including Gov. Newsom, Bonta and his wife, California State Rep. Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, began decrying what Newsom called "right-wing provocateurs" who made immigrants feel "under siege" in California.
Rob Bonta, without providing counter evidence or indicating that the state had conducted any kind of investigation of its own, called Shirley's reporting "reckless," "false," "outrageous" and "ridiculous."
And three weeks after Shirley began working to investigate fraud and waste in California, Mia Bonta introduced AB 2624 and Democrats began advancing the legislation.
In the lawsuit, Shirley and his AFL attorneys say the law's timing and legislative history are no coincidence.
"... The First Amendment does not allow the government to silence truthful reporting because it is controversial, inconvenient, or politically disfavored," Shirley says in his complaint.
"Yet that is precisely what AB 2624 threatens to do. The law imposes civil liability for publishing, disclosing, or trading certain personal information concerning providers of immigration-related services — even when that information is lawfully obtained and published as part of reporting on matters of public concern.
"In practical terms, the law places a target on all the investigative reporting Mr. Shirley conducts."
They said AB2624 essentially establishes "designated immigration support services" providers and immigrant advocates as a protected class, shielded from public scrutiny of their actions by allowing the state to block access to information about who they are and about their operations, despite their use of taxpayer money and other public funds.
Shirley claims the law further discriminates on the basis of viewpoint, shielding those who favor immigration while imposing no similar protections for opponents by criminalizing speech that carries no actual threat or incites violence against anyone.
They said the law’s scope would serve to not only stymy truthful journalistic investigations in the public interest, but also inevitably chill all manner of political speech concerning immigration and related government waste and fraud, all of which is protected by the First Amendment.
"A speaker may publish truthful, lawfully obtained personal information for legitimate journalistic or investigative purposes that does not objectively constitute an actual threat or incitement to imminent lawless action," Shirley said in his complaint. "Yet, AB 2624 would allow a court or jury to conclude, based on ambiguous or contested evidence of subjective intent, that the speaker acted with the proscribed intent.
"This scheme creates precisely the kind of ex post, fact-intensive liability determination that chills protected speech before publication, because a speaker cannot know in advance how a factfinder (a judge or jury) will characterize his motive, even if the First Amendment protects his speech."
In a post to social media platform X, America First Legal said: "Simply put, it (AB 2624) was designed to protect the illegal immigration industry."
For their part, supporters of AB 2624, including California State Rep. Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, have asserted the legislation doesn't target "journalists," but rather "bad faith actors" attempting to allegedly "smear immigrant communities and the people who serve them."
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