Lots of people have written to me arguing for cutting Biden slack, he's cleaning up Trump's immigration messes, the record-low refugee admissions we're on track for must somehow be Trump's fault, etc. Some thoughts on this line of argument... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/12/most-anti-refugee-president-modern-history-might-not-be-donald-trump/?tid=ss_tw

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/

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'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't board flights because Biden hadn'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'd reverse those restrictions. Then he didn'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'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't one of them. Biden has almost plenary power to lift Trump's discriminatory refugee restrictions, and he announced intentions to use it, but then inexplicably didn't.

The White House has been asked many times (including by me) what the holdup is, why hasn't Biden signed the simple paperwork for his own announced policy? Psaki et al don't answer, instead offering content-free statements about how Biden is very "committed" to helping refugees

If that's the case, he should walk the walk.