North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein on Friday signed "Iryna's Law," which increases checks on criminals getting out on bail and prohibits cashless bail for some violent crimes and most repeat offenders following the stabbing death of a Ukrainian refugee on a Charlotte light-rail train in August. 

Stein, a Democrat, has said he doesn’t like every part of the bill that was passed by the Republican-controlled state Legislature, which also looks to restart executions in North Carolina, but he signed it because it "alerts the judiciary to take a special look at people who may pose unusual risks of violence before determining their bail. That’s a good thing."

Iryna Zarutska, 23, was killed on Aug. 22, and Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., who had been arrested more than a dozen times, including an armed robbery charge for which he served five years in prison before the fatal train stabbing, has been charged with first-degree murder.

He was most recently released in January on a misdemeanor charge.

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"Finally, we are getting dangerous criminals off our streets so we can make sure no one else suffers the heartbreak that Iryna Zarutska’s family endured," Charlotte-area Republican state Rep. Tricia Cotham, who was involved with the legislation, said in a news release. 

Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have blamed Zarutska’s death on Democrats, accusing them of being soft on crime. 

"The blood of this innocent woman can literally be seen dripping from the killer’s knife, and now her blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail, including Former Disgraced Governor and ‘Wannabe Senator’ Roy Cooper," Trump wrote on Truth Social after the attack. 

The violent stabbing sparked outrage, especially after security video showing the attack was released. 

"We can and must do more to keep people safe," Stein said in a video posted to social media on Friday. "When I review public safety legislation that comes to my desk, I use one simple test: Does it make people safer?" 

He said that "Iryna's Law" alerts the judiciary to take a special look at who could warrant an "unusual" risk for violence before determining their bail. 

NORTH CAROLINA DEM SAYS ‘NO CORRELATION’ BETWEEN CHARLOTTE TRAIN ATTACK AND ACCUSED KILLER’S REPEATED RELEASES

"That’s a good thing and why I have signed it into law." 

But, he said he had criticisms of the law, including that it focuses more on a defendant’s ability to post bail rather than the threat they pose, and "more alarming," he added that a last-minute amendment to the bill that "aims to bring about execution by firing squad in North Carolina. It’s barbaric."

The last execution in North Carolina was in 2006. 

He stressed that he wouldn’t allow firing squads while he’s governor. The bill doesn't specifically mention firing squads. 

He said he was also troubled by the bill’s "lack of ambition or vision. It simply does not do enough to keep you safe." 

The governor said he wanted the legislature to pass his comprehensive bill that would add more police officers on the streets, violence prevention measures like keeping kids out of gangs, and would attempt to make sure that people who are violent or mentally ill don’t have access to guns via background checks. 

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"Iryna’s Law" prohibits cashless bail for some violent crimes and for most repeat offenders; it limits the discretion magistrates and judges have in making pretrial release decisions; allows for the state chief justice to suspend magistrates and requires more defendants to undergo mental health evaluations. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Democrats want to remove a provision of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) before reopening the government, but Republicans argue the line item they want removed is allowing California to use a "loophole" to draw down funds from the federal government to help pay for the state's ballooning cost of healthcare for illegal immigrants.

The White House released a memo on Wednesday during the first day of the government shutdown fight indicating Democrats want to repeal Trump reforms in his "big, beautiful bill" that aimed to close this alleged backdoor tactic. However, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office and left-leaning health policy experts insist claims that California is using this tactic are not true.

"When Democrats say, as they keep saying, that there is no federal money or any taxpayer money going for illegal immigrant healthcare because it's illegal and barred by federal law, it's simply not true," said Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host now running to replace Newsom as governor of California. 

Hilton claimed that California has been using a complex Medicaid provision known as a "provider tax" to obtain matching federal dollars, which then gets pooled into the money used by the state to pay for its healthcare offered to undocumented immigrants.

WHITE HOUSE MEMO SAYS DEMOCRATS' PLAN COULD SPEND $200B ON HEALTHCARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

"If [federal dollars] are funding non-emergency healthcare for ineligible immigrants, the sole cause is provider taxes," Michael Cannon, a health policy expert at the CATO Institute told Fox News Digital. 

Cannon, however, suggested Republicans shot themselves in the foot by choosing only to limit the scope of eligibility around provider tax funds in the OBBBA, saying no more could go to states providing illegal immigrants healthcare, and they should have just quashed them altogether. 

"What they did was that Republicans preserved the ability of states to use provider taxes to fund healthcare for undocumented immigrants using Medicaid," he argued.

However, Newsom's office insisted to the Los Angeles Times that the claim California is utilizing a provider tax "loophole" to fund illegal immigrant healthcare is simply not true. It is effectively impossible to make a determination one way or the other because states do not keep records on how provider tax funds from the federal government are spent. 

"This is false — CA does not do this," Gardon said in a one-line email to the LA Times. Newsom's office did not reply to Fox News Digital's request for comment in time for publication.

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Other healthcare policy experts agree as well that this is not happening.

"The so-called California loophole references a provision in the law that ends a waiver of the uniformity requirements for provider taxes. This provision has nothing to do with using federal funds to pay for care for undocumented immigrants," Jennifer Tolbert, a healthcare expert at the nonprofit healthcare research organization KFF. 

"But the White House makes the claim that California uses the money they get from the provider tax to pay for care for undocumented immigrants." 

Chris Pope, a health policy expert from the Manhattan Institute, argues California is also using emergency care claims to draw down even more funds to help pay for its ballooning cost of being the first state in the nation to offer comprehensive healthcare coverage for anyone regardless of their immigration status. 

Federal law does not permit federal funds to be used for non-emergency medical care for illegal immigrants, but it does not prohibit them from being used for emergency care for these folks.  

"The enormous and open-ended discretion Medicaid gives states to claim federal funding makes it hard for the feds to ensure that the program’s expenditures are reserved for its intended purposes," Pope wrote in an Op-Ed for the New York Post Friday. "Until that changes, the Democratic claim that federal money isn’t being used on illegal immigrants is simply not true."