Iran war puts further strain on congressional casework

WASHINGTON — Students studying abroad. Tourists on vacation. A couple on a honeymoon. Layovers, business trips, cruise ships.

As the war in Iran continues, congressional caseworkers are trying to help — and feeling extra strain — as Americans evacuate from the Middle East.

“You think about these people and what they’re going through even after work hours, and in your mind, you’re worried about them, you’re concerned for them, you wish you could do more,” said a caseworker for a Senate Democrat.

“It can be all-consuming because you don’t want to miss any information. You don’t want to be late on providing information that might be key to helping somebody,” added the caseworker, who requested anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak to the press.

Because of time differences, some caseworkers are working early mornings and late nights to reach constituents abroad.

“I just try to make myself available basically 24/7 during a crisis,” said a caseworker for a House Republican.

Congressional caseworkers play an unsung yet crucial role in times of crises or disaster, liaising with government agencies to make sure constituents receive the benefits or services they are entitled to — or in this case, to get them out of countries where missiles may be falling.

Another example came after President Joe Biden withdrew American troops from Afghanistan in 2021, following a deal between the Trump administration and the Taliban. As scenes of chaos played out, caseworkers fielded frantic calls from people feeling left behind by the State Department.

That episode revealed what can happen when federal agencies are overwhelmed with pleas for help — and some fear the lessons didn’t stick.

“If there’s not a good mechanism for Congress to reach the agency and say, ‘What’s the guidance here? What should I be telling my constituents to do?’… that’s a big problem,” said Anne Meeker, managing director at POPVOX Foundation and a former caseworker herself.

Bureaucratic woes

They may be a direct link between people and their government, but caseworkers aren’t supposed to play the role of federal agencies, even when bombs are raining down.

“It should be talking to those folks who aren’t able to make it into normal channels, and helping escalate those cases within the Department of State so that someone else can pick those cases up and help them. What they should not be doing is the basic work of a federal agency in crisis response,” Meeker said.

But according to the Senate Democratic caseworker, the past few weeks have been confusing for U.S. citizens trying to leave Iran or countries facing retaliatory strikes, like Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

“A lot of … the public messaging is not the reality, and that puts us in another really challenging position to have to kind of mitigate that with constituents who are looking for help,” said the Senate Democratic caseworker.

Even as State Department officials were posting to X earlier this month about military and charter flights being secured for Americans, the caseworker said they were being told people should seek commercial flights to leave.

In previous crises, the office would take down callers’ contact information and whether they were with a large tour or family group. The caseworker would provide that information to the State Department, saying they had constituents who were seeking assistance to depart. The closest U.S. embassy or consulate would then communicate with the people directly, helping them navigate that process or, in cases of government-assisted departure, manifesting them on a flight.

This month, it seemed to the caseworker that requests to the State Department were going into a “black hole.”

“We feel ineffective, and it wasn’t always like that. It used to be that we could make miracles happen, and now it’s like we can barely get information,” the caseworker said.

A spokesperson for the State Department said it held more than 20 briefings for congressional offices, along with communicating directly, and “continues to actively assist any American in the Middle East who requests it.” The department “directly assisted” more than 50,000 Americans since the war began on Feb. 28, according to the spokesperson, and over 75,000 have safely returned to the U.S.

“The State Department can say all day long that they’re facilitating these flights. And what we are hearing from constituents is while it’s happening, it’s happening at a much slower rate,” said the Senate Democratic caseworker.

Lessons learned?

Even when they feel stuck in the middle, caseworkers said they try to stay focused on one thing — the voices on the other end of the line.

On March 11, the State Department announced it would “scale down” charter flights and ground transport options, saying it would be its last daily update on the matter “given the remarkable successes and declining demand in the region.”

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump said he was pausing attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure.

But some lawmakers are questioning how the early days of the war were handled. In a March 17 letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Democrats from the House Foreign Affairs panel complained of a “seeming lack of preparedness” for “foreseeable risks to American citizens and U.S. government personnel.”

“Kind of reading between the lines, I think they were ill-prepared at first. I don’t think they had a whole lot of preparation for it, and I think that was part of the secrecy of this to keep any of the attacks under wraps,” said a Senate Republican caseworker, referring to the State Department.

After the Afghanistan withdrawal, Meeker authored a report from POPVOX Foundation recommending ways to head off another “doom loop” and improve agency responsiveness.

“What we’re hearing from caseworkers is that it does not look like that has happened. This is the same process. These are the same kind of operating procedures as we saw in Afghanistan withdrawal, which did not work very well, despite the best efforts of all of the really good people trying,” she said.

Much as they did back then, some caseworkers turned to informal chat networks with counterparts in other congressional offices, looking for support and answers.

“We’re all trying to help each other out, and now help our constituents to the best of our ability,” the caseworker for the Senate Democrat said.

The nature of casework itself means requests for help will vary from office to office, depending on how many constituents from a state or district may be stranded. While not everyone is inundated this time around, they agree on one thing.

“If that was one of my family members, I would love to know that somebody on the other side of the world was helping them. I would want that to be that case, if that was me or if that was the family member. So I just try to treat people that way no matter what. I want them to know that I’m there for them,” said the caseworker for the House Republican.