Across the Western world, countries have restricted their refugee admission laws and stepped up their border control policies to prevent refugees from reaching their territory. At the same time, the resettlement of refugees has become increasingly popular. More states have introduced resettlement schemes, and many have raised the number of resettled individuals. Why do states decide to voluntarily admit refugees while increasing their efforts to deter asylum seekers? We explore this puzzle by investigating the determinants behind countries' decisions to admit refugees by resettlement. We argue that resettlement has an important instrumental function for liberal democracies: Resettlement preserves the humanitarian commitment of states and thereby legitimizes an ever more restricted access to asylum. The argument is tested with a comparative analysis of resettlement choices by OECD countries between 1980 and 2018. The results confirm that the opening of resettlement channels is combined with the closure of borders to prevent irregular entries. This finding bears important implications for global asylum governance and responsibility-sharing.