RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A bill that would require North Carolina sheriffs to comply with requests by federal agents interested in picking up jail inmates believed to be in the country illegally passed a Senate committee Tuesday, making it the first major legislation to advance in this year's work session.
The bill already cleared the House last year but stalled in the Senate until it was approved by the chamber's judiciary committee on a voice vote. The Senate action signals the measure is a priority for state Republicans who now hold narrow veto-proof majorities in both chambers. A full Senate vote could come later this week.
Two earlier editions of the bill passed the legislature in 2019 and 2022, only to be successfully vetoed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper because Democrats held more seats than today. GOP election gains mean Republicans can override a potential Cooper veto this year if they stay united. Cooper has said a previous version was “only about scoring political points” by the GOP on immigration.
The bill essentially requires sheriffs or jailers in all 100 counties to hold inmates accused of violent felonies or some misdemeanors up to 48 hours if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued what's called a detainer. It also requires the involvement of judicial officials to order law enforcement to hold the inmate in question, according to the bill.
In an ICE detainer request, immigration agents ask to be notified before the release from a local jail of a defendant whom the agency believes is in the country unlawfully.
Sheriffs or other law enforcement officials already are tasked with checking an inmate’s legal status if they are charged with serious crimes, according to state law. If a determination cannot be made on someone’s legal status, a query should be sent to ICE.
But not all sheriffs are following through with those queries, said Rep. Destin Hall, a Caldwell County Republican and a sponsor of the bill who spoke at Tuesday's committee hearing. Hall added that a group of sheriffs — primarily Democrats from urban counties — have resisted compliance with detainers, which critics say aren’t true arrest warrants. He said those shortcomings inspired a need for the bill.
“To me, it is amazing that we have to have a bill like this,” Hall said. “It seems to be common sense that law enforcement should cooperate with one another.”
Hall said the bill would make communities safer. He cited incidents where federal immigration officers should have been contacted about an inmate, but they were later released and went on to commit more crimes.
Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, a Republican, spoke in support of the legislation, saying it would “remove criminal offenders from our communities.”
Most public speakers during the hearing opposed the measure, however. Lawyers, activists and small business owners voiced concern that the bill could lead to North Carolina’s immigrant community feeling unsafe and unwelcome.
The legislation also raises serious constitutional concerns of due process violations and causes more problems for law enforcement, said Sejal Zota, legal director with the Just Futures Law group, which assists immigrants.
“The bill interferes with communities and sheriffs’ decisions about local resources and priorities, exposes sheriffs and counties to expensive lawsuits for constitutional violation and further erodes community trust in law enforcement,” said Andressia Ramirez of the North Carolina Justice Center, which advocates for low-income residents.
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, one of the Democratic sheriffs who doesn't comply with detainer requests, said last week the bill is an “absolutely” political move that unfairly targets sheriffs in urban counties. But he said he would comply with the law if the bill should be enacted — even if he had some questions on how it would affect county resources.
An amendment approved Tuesday by the committee in part would allow anyone to file a complaint with state Attorney General’s Office if the person alleged a sheriff or jail administrator wasn’t abiding by the proposed legislation. The attorney general could then ask a judge to force the jailer to comply.
The bill must clear one more Senate committee. Wilson County Republican Sen. Buck Newton, a judiciary committee co-chairman, told reporters it was a “reasonable expectation” for the bill to be voted on the Senate floor this week. The House also would have to formally agree to the Senate changes for it to reach Cooper's desk.
Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page expresses support for the immigration-related bill during a state Senate judiciary committee hearing at the Legislative Office Building on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. He said the bill would keep communities safer. (AP Photo/Makiya Seminera)
Sejal Zota, the legal director for the Just Futures Law advocacy group, voices opposition to the immigration-related bill during a state Senate judiciary committee hearing at the Legislative Office Building on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. The bill enforces compliance with federal immigration officers' requests to detain inmates for sheriffs and jail administrators. (AP Photo/Makiya Seminera)
CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Tuesday due to a lack of supplies and an untenable security situation caused by Israel’s expanding military operation. The U.N. warned that humanitarian operations across the territory were nearing collapse.
A senior United States official said Israel has addressed many of the Biden administration's concerns about a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah aimed at rooting out Hamas fighters there. U.S. President Joe Biden had previously opposed a total military assault on a city filled with displaced civilians if plans did not prioritize the safety of innocent Palestinians. The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
The official said the administration stopped short of greenlighting the Israeli invasion plan, but said Israeli officials’ changes to the planning suggested they were taking the American administration’s concerns seriously.
In the past two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have fled Rafah in a chaotic exodus, seeking shelter in new tent camps or crowding into areas already devastated by previous Israeli offensives. Some 400,000 people are believed to still be in Rafah after around 900,000 rushed to escape, according to COGAT, the Israeli military office in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs.
Getting aid to displaced civilians has been hampered by closed and chaotic land crossings, as well as problems plaguing the U.S. military’s new floating pier meant to provide an alternative sea route for aid into Gaza. Over the weekend, hungry Palestinians took aid from a U.N. vehicle convoy coming from the pier, and the U.N. said since then it had been unable to receive trucks there.
Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters in Washington that for the past few days, forward movement of aid from the pier was paused but it resumed Tuesday. There was no confirmation from the U.N.
The U.N.'s World Food Program said it was running out of food for central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people are now living.
“Humanitarian operations in Gaza are near collapse,” said Abeer Etefa, a WFP spokesperson. If food and other supplies don’t resume entering Gaza “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread,” she said.
The warning came as Israel seeks to contain the international fallout from a request at the world’s top war crimes court for arrest warrants targeting both Israeli and Hamas leaders. The move garnered support from three European countries, including Israel's key ally France.
The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court cited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “use of starvation as a method of warfare,” a charge they and other Israeli officials angrily deny. The prosecutor accused three Hamas leaders of war crimes over killings of civilians in the group's Oct. 7 attack.
The U.N says some 1.1 million people in Gaza — nearly half the population — face catastrophic levels of hunger and that the territory is on the brink of famine. The humanitarian crisis deepened after Israeli forces pushed into Rafah on May 6, vowing to root out Hamas fighters. Tanks and troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, closing it ever since. After May 10, only about three dozen trucks made it into Gaza via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel because fighting makes it dangerous for aid workers to reach it, the U.N. says.
Israel insists it puts no restriction on the number of trucks entering Gaza. COGAT said 450 trucks entered Tuesday from its side to Kerem Shalom and a small crossing in northern Gaza. It said more than 650 trucks are waiting on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom to be retrieved, blaming “lack of logistical capabilities and manpower gaps” among aid groups.
For months, the U.N. has warned that an Israeli assault on Rafah could wreck the effort to get food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians across Gaza. Throughout the war, Rafah has been filled with scenes of hungry children holding out pots and plastic containers at makeshift soup kitchens, with many families reduced to eating only one meal a day. The city's population had swelled at one point to some 1.3 million people, most of whom fled fighting elsewhere.
The main agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, announced the suspension of distribution in Rafah in a post on X, without elaborating beyond citing the lack of supplies. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UNRWA distribution center and the WFP's warehouses in Rafah were "inaccessible due to ongoing military operations.”
Asked about the ramifications of suspending aid, Dujarric said simply: “People don’t eat.”
Etefa said the WFP had also stopped distribution in Rafah after exhausting its stocks. It is still passing out hot meals and “limited distributions” of reduced food packages in central Gaza, but “food parcel stocks will run out within days,” she said.
The U.S. depicted the floating aid pier as a potential route for accelerated deliveries. The first 10 trucks rolled off a ship onto the pier on Friday and were taken to a WFP warehouse. But a second shipment of 11 trucks on Saturday was met by Palestinian crowds who took supplies, and only five trucks made it to the warehouse, Etefa said.
No further deliveries came from the pier on Sunday or Monday, she said.
“The responsibility of ensuring aid reaches those in need does not end at the crossings and other points of entry into Gaza — it extends throughout Gaza itself,” she said.
At the same time, battles have escalated in northern Gaza as Israeli troops conduct operations against Hamas fighters, who the military says regrouped in areas already targeted in offensives months ago.
One of the main hospitals still operating in the north, Kamal Adwan, was forced to evacuate after it was “targeted” by Israeli troops, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Around 150 staff and dozens of patients fled the facility, including intensive care patients and infants in incubators “under fire from shelling,” it said. The Israeli military did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
The nearby Awda hospital has been surrounded by troops the past three days, and an artillery shell hit its fifth floor, the hospital administration said Tuesday. A day earlier, the international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said Awda had run out of drinking water.
The war between began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostage. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan accused Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh of crimes against humanity, including extermination, murder and sexual violence.
Israel responded to the Oct. 7 with an offensive that has laid waste to Gaza and killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between noncombatants and fighters in its count.
Monday's call by Khan for arrest warrants deepens Israel’s global isolation at a time when it is facing growing criticism from even its closest allies over the war. France, Belgium, and Slovenia each said they backed Khan' decision.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz headed to France on Tuesday in response, urging it to “declare loud and clear” that the request for warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant "is unacceptable to you and to the French government.”
His meetings there could set the tone for how countries navigate the warrants — if they are eventually issued — and whether they could pose a threat to Israeli leaders. A panel of three ICC judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.
Israel still has the support of its top ally, the United States, as well as other Western countries that spoke out against the decision. But if the warrants are issued, they could complicate international travel for Netanyahu and his defense minister, even if they do not face any immediate risk of prosecution because Israel itself is not a member of the court.
Goldenberg reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press journalists Majdi Mohammed in the Jenin refugee camp, West Bank, Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem, Aamer Madhani in Washington, John Leicester in Paris, and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
FILE - Palestinians line up for a meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023. The United Nations said Tuesday, May 21, 2024, it suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity. It also said no aid trucks entered in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the U.S. for sea deliveries. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair, File)
FILE - Palestinians line up for free food during the ongoing Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Jan. 9, 2024. The United Nations said Tuesday, May 21, 2024, it suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity. It also said no aid trucks entered in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the U.S. for sea deliveries. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali, File)
Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians line up for food distribution in Deir al Balah, Gaza, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Journalists carry their colleague after he was shot in his leg during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank Jenin refugee camp, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Israeli forces raided a militant stronghold Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, killing at least seven and wounding several, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The raid into the Jenin refugee camp is part of months of surging violence in the Palestinian territory. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Israeli military vehicles are seen during a raid in the West Bank Jenin refugee camp, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Israeli forces raided a militant stronghold Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, killing at least seven and wounding several, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The raid into the Jenin refugee camp is part of months of surging violence in the Palestinian territory. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Israeli military vehicles are seen during a raid in the West Bank Jenin refugee camp, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Israeli forces raided a militant stronghold Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, killing at least seven and wounding several, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The raid into the Jenin refugee camp is part of months of surging violence in the Palestinian territory. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinians mourn their relative who was killed in an Israeli military raid on the West Bank Jenin refugee camp, at a hospital morgue in the city of Jenin, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Israeli forces raided a militant stronghold Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, killing at least seven and wounding several, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The raid into the Jenin refugee camp is part of months of surging violence in the Palestinian territory. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
This satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC shows an camp before its mass evacuation in Rafah, Gaza, May 5, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC shows an evacuated camp in Rafah, Gaza, May 8, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
This satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC shows an evacuated camp in Rafah, Gaza, May 8, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC shows an camp before its mass evacuation in Rafah, Gaza, May 5, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
Smoke billows after an explosion in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel on Oct. 28, 2023. Top Israeli officials are accused of seven war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ICC. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, speaks to journalists after his meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, on June 28, 2021. The Hamas officials are accused by the ICC of planning and instigating eight war crimes and crimes against humanity, among them extermination, murder, taking hostages, rape and torture. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
FILE - Exterior view of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor said Monday, May 20, 2024, that he’s seeking arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders in connection with their actions during the seven-month war. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
Smoke rises to the sky after explosion in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
