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Lots of people have written to me arguing for cutting Biden slack, he& #39;s cleaning up Trump& #39;s immigration messes, the record-low refugee admissions we& #39;re on track for must somehow be Trump& #39;s fault, etc. Some thoughts on this line of argument... 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🧵" title="Thread" aria-label="Emoji: Thread"> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/12/most-anti-refugee-president-modern-history-might-not-be-donald-trump/?tid=ss_tw">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...
I wholeheartedly agree that Trump did a lot to hobble the U.S. immigration system, including the refugee system. I wrote about this in depth last year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/29/trump-immigration-daca-family-separation/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...
It will take a lot of work and resources to rebuild that immigration infrastructure & the refugee pipeline in particular. Not just scaling up circuit rides & other parts of the screening process, but reopening local resettlement agency affiliates that have closed, etc.
The refugee system definitely requires more resources/hiring if we aspire to admit 125k refugees next FY, as Biden claims he wants.
However, what& #39;s needed to scale up admissions next year is a separate question from how we should treat refugees who have *already* made it through the extensive screening process & been deemed travel-ready, whom resettlement agencies were already ready and eager to receive.
As of early March there were several thousand such refugees fully vetted & "travel-ready"; getting them to U.S. does not require rehiring anyone or rebuilding anything. 715 were already booked to fly. But they couldn& #39;t board flights because Biden hadn& #39;t signed some paperwork
Last Oct, Trump set discriminatory refugee admissions criteria that precluded most refugees from African/Muslim countries from resettlement. Biden said in Feb he& #39;d reverse those restrictions. Then he didn& #39;t sign the document ("presidential determination") to make that happen.
So refugees State Dept booked for travel got unbooked, because they were unexpectedly still subject to the Trump-era policies...even though we have a new president who says he doesn& #39;t like those policies and who can reverse them with the stroke of a pen.
There are a lot of immigration issues (including the border surge) that are difficult to solve. This isn& #39;t one of them. Biden has almost plenary power to lift Trump& #39;s discriminatory refugee restrictions, and he announced intentions to use it, but then inexplicably didn& #39;t.
The White House has been asked many times (including by me) what the holdup is, why hasn& #39;t Biden signed the simple paperwork for his own announced policy? Psaki et al don& #39;t answer, instead offering content-free statements about how Biden is very "committed" to helping refugees
If that& #39;s the case, he should walk the walk.
