SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Legislation aimed at protecting immigrant service workers and their families from doxxing and threats is headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom after clearing six policy committees, two fiscal committees and floor votes in both the Assembly and Senate.
Assemblymember Mia Bonta authored Assembly Bill 2624, which is headed to the governor after it passed through six policy committees, two fiscal committees and full Assembly and Senate floor votes.
In a direct response to an escalation of threats to immigrant service workers in California, Bonta’s office states that AB 2624 was introduced to help these workers by addressing and considering protections for immigrants.
In testimony before the Assembly Privacy Committee, Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), brought attention to the escalation of threats, stating:
“We received a lot of hate calls, a lot of threats of violence against our organization… I’m personally named consistently, and the threats of violence are extreme… Our staff, just recently, going out to lunch, had people outside asking for their names, asking them questions, really attacking their ability to move from one place to another, trying to get into our office. It happened to me and happened to a family member. They were looking for me and ended up in my mother’s home. There’s so many of my colleagues where individuals have shown up to their home, who have been threatened, and this is not just our organization, but many others.”
Over the past year, there was a coordinated right-wing misinformation campaign that did not have much to do with the bill’s actual text.
Assemblymember Mia Bonta stated, “This bill has gone through the process: six committees, two fiscal reviews, floor votes, and at every step, the facts have held up … Meanwhile, right-wing agitators, ineffective legislators, and Trump loyalists are still scrambling to finalize their campaign against it, which was never really about this bill. It’s about making people think twice before standing up for their immigrant neighbors.”
Republican Carl DeMaio has repeatedly tried to stop AB 2624 from reaching a floor vote earlier this year; however, each attempt to stop it has failed.
There was a motion under Assembly Rule 96 in hopes of sending the bill back to the Privacy Committee, another motion under Rule 98 trying to strike the bill from the file and another motion under Rule 97 to try to get the bill withdrawn from the committee altogether. All of these motions failed to stop AB 2624 from reaching a floor vote.
AB 2624 is an expansion of the state’s Safe at Home program, which is administered by the California secretary of state and allows participants in the program to use a substitute mailing address instead of their home address.
The protection from this bill is intended to make sure that people who have been threatened through the use of personal information at work are protected from those threats reaching them or their families.
This bill has received much criticism from Republican lawmakers and opposing media, who have referred to the bill as the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.” They argue that the bill can affect public filming, independent journalism and other online speech.
However, no news media, the press release states, have objected to the bill, and even independent fact-checkers, such as Snopes, “found no basis in the bill’s text for the claims driving the opposition.”
However, 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.”
“AB 2624 has been reviewed and passed by the: Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, Assembly Judiciary Committee, Assembly Public Safety Committee, Assembly Appropriations Committee, Assembly Floor, Senate Privacy, Digital Technology and Consumer Protection Committee, Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Public Safety Committee, Senate Appropriations Committee, Senate Floor, and Assembly Floor – Concurrence,” the press release states.
As of now, AB 2624 heads to the governor, who will determine whether to sign the bill into law or veto it.
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