Protects Immigration Aid Workers' Privacy
Official: Privacy for immigration support services providers
This bill lets people who work or volunteer at immigration aid groups hide their home address from public records if they have been threatened. It also lets them sue someone who posts their personal information online to threaten them or stir up violence. Critics nicknamed it the 'Stop Nick Shirley Act,' after the independent journalist whose viral videos of immigration and welfare programs prompted it.
Adds Chapter 3.2 (commencing with Section 6218.10) to the Government Code. Extends California's Safe at Home address confidentiality program to immigration support services providers, their employees, and volunteers who can show a credible threat or harassment, letting them use a substitute address on public records. Creates civil liability for knowingly posting or selling a covered worker's personal information with specific intent to incite imminent bodily harm or to threaten them (up to three times damages, minimum $4,000), and lets a worker send a written demand to remove their personal information. Authored by Assemblymember Mia Bonta. Passed the Assembly 57-19 on May 27, 2026; now in the Senate.
1. It adds immigration aid workers to California's existing Safe at Home program, which already hides the home addresses of domestic violence survivors and reproductive health care workers. 2. To qualify, a worker must show they were threatened or harassed in the past year, and protection lasts four years for employees and six months for volunteers. 3. Posting or selling a worker's personal information to threaten them or incite violence can bring a lawsuit for at least $4,000, or triple the actual damages. 4. A worker can also send a written demand to take their information down, and a judge can order it removed even without proof of intent to harm. 5. The bill does not exempt journalists, and the new address program starts accepting applications on July 1, 2027.