America First Legal has filed an AB 2624 free speech challenge in Sacramento federal court on behalf of conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley, seeking both a declaratory judgment that California’s new immigration worker privacy law is unconstitutional and an injunction blocking its enforcement before it takes effect.
The suit was lodged on 4 September, three weeks after Governor Gavin Newsom signed the legislation on 22 August 2026, the date it was also chaptered by the California Secretary of State as Chapter 117, Statutes of 2026, according to CalMatters Digital Democracy.
What Assembly Bill 2624 Does
Assembly Bill 2624, authored by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Oakland), extends California’s Safe at Home programme to immigration support services providers, employees, and volunteers who fear for their personal safety because of their affiliation with a designated immigration support facility. Participants receive a substitute mailing address for use in government records, keeping their home, school, and workplace addresses from public disclosure. Under the bill, eligible facilities include nonprofit offices, Department of Justice-recognised entities, community legal clinics, and law offices providing immigration support services, per the California Senate Public Safety Committee analysis.
Participants and members of their households may also vote confidentially, CalMatters reports. The bill’s coalition of supporters included the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and the Women’s Foundation of California as co-sponsors, according to the same committee analysis.
The law separately prohibits online disclosure of personal information posted with the specific intent to incite imminent great bodily harm or to threaten a protected worker or co-resident. The minimum penalty stands at $4,000; according to FOX 5 San Diego, penalties can reach $10,000, with imprisonment also possible. Violators may additionally face court orders restricting publication and liability for plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees.
The AB 2624 Free Speech Challenge: Arguments and Timing
The complaint alleges the law discriminates on the basis of content and viewpoint of speech, and is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague. According to Courthouse News Service, Shirley says he has already stopped his investigative reporting because of the threat of civil liability under the statute, arguing that chilling effect makes the suit ripe for adjudication now, despite the law’s scheduled implementation date of 1 October 2027.
Courthouse News Service also reports that the bill was introduced in February, three days after Attorney General Rob Bonta publicly called fraud accusations in California ‘reckless and ridiculous,’ and shortly after Governor Newsom said San Diego’s Somali community felt ‘under siege’ following what he described as the arrival of ‘right-wing provocateurs.’ Shirley contends that sequence points to legislative targeting of his work specifically.
The Republican Study Committee has written to US Attorney General Todd Blanche urging the Department of Justice to file its own federal action to block the law. The RSC’s letter signals that the AB 2624 free speech challenge has drawn attention beyond California’s courts: the letter also cited the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which it says has uncovered nearly $230 billion in fraud and enforced more than $55 billion through indictments, settlements, and civil penalties.
First Amendment Concerns Before and After Passage
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) warned in April that an earlier version of the bill could allow immigration service providers to ‘ban nearly anyone from posting their personal information on the internet,’ with ‘personal information’ potentially covering ‘anything that “relates to” them.’
The bill was amended before passage to narrow the prohibition to posts made with the specific intent to threaten or incite violence. FIRE maintained, however, that the revised text ‘could still chill lawful, constitutionally protected speech about immigrants and immigration service providers,’ and warned the law ‘could also be abused in practice through frivolous demands to take down speech that doesn’t actually meet the bar for incitement or threats.’
During a California Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee hearing on 7 April 2026, Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio of San Diego raised two concerns: whether Somali learning centres could qualify as immigration service providers under the bill’s definitions, and the absence of any journalist exemption, according to KCRA.
AB 2624 joins a line of similar statutes drawing constitutional scrutiny. California has extended comparable address-protection provisions to reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare providers and workers. New Jersey’s Daniel’s Law, which shields the home addresses of judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers, was upheld by that state’s Supreme Court but produced a press-freedom episode in which a journalist was initially barred from publishing a police chief’s address obtained through a public records request. Illinois enacted comparable protections for state officials, effective January of this year.
Subject to any onward appeal, the Sacramento federal court’s ruling on the preliminary injunction in the AB 2624 free speech challenge will serve as the first judicial test of whether a state can restrict online disclosure of immigration service workers’ personal information without running into the First Amendment.
