Trump wanted to ban ‘outsiders.’ Biden recognizes that our country is made up of them.

It's time to let refugees back into this country.

Just a few weeks into his presidency, President Biden has made significant decisions and issued executive orders that have reminded me that we are humans, not simply blue or red votes. Still, much of former president Trump’s damage to our humanity will not be so easily undone. In the past four years, the Trump administration dismissed science, ruined international partnerships, denied climate change and treated people fleeing war, violence and persecution as less than human — in fact, as “aliens.” 

These are all things the Biden administration is working to fix. But it is the last issue that caused me, for years, to trudge so many times through remote places smelling of sweat and misery. I wanted to tell the stories of the people Trump and others wanted to keep out of our country. 

This issue is personal, and the people involved are painfully human.