Norman Finkelstein said something the other day, quoting someone else...it was..."hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue". Meaning, evil people understand what they're doing is wrong, that's why they pretend to be good. Hypocrisy is beyond the point to them. They've sacrificed morality. Although I think Finkelstein was saying it in the context of talking about how Republican pols do so much less of even pretending to be good (though certainly not zero).
Saying the president is already unpopular and now he won’t take these people makes it sound like taking refugees would boost his popularity
Trump however by doing this shows he thinks taking refugees is a bad thing
Forcibly relocating refugees doesn’t make them no longer refugees, it just makes you (the one relocating them) a bad person/in violation of international law