A small crowdsourced survey of US Congressional Representatives’ grade on their responsiveness to requests for help with Afghan evacuees.
Congressional Representative | State | Grade (A-F) | Point of Contact / Office | Notes |
Brad Schneider | IL | A | Karyn Davidman, caseworker | Very responsive, even when State is not to her. Connected me with another constituent who was able to help get one of my P1s who had received a Taliban arrest warrant (death warrant) on a plane to the UAE. |
Dave Reichert | WA | A | Staffer | Congressman has historically been a strong supporter of the SIV program. Staffer is highly sympathetic and responsive to requests for inquiries to expedite individual cases. |
Jerry Moran | KS | A | Staffer | Excellent communication, the staffer is compassionate and his heart is in this work, however, we haven’t experienced any “special” expedition or access through this contact. A loyal ally. (Clearly you haven’t been lucky enough to work with Grace. <3) |
Amy Klobuchar | MN | B | Staffer | Responsive to our point of contact; willing to “push” HP visas once their are confirmation numbers |
Ben Cardin | MD | B | Staffer | It took time to be connected with the right staffer, but he has been responsive and helpful in following up with NVC to advocate for expedited processing of a green card pending Afghan who land-evacuated to Pakistan. |
Diana DeGette | CO | B | Nermina Mujkanović | Constituent Services Director | Staffers will go silent for long periods of time but then occasionally circle back with helpful or relevant information, or assistance. Did help assist in moving some stuck SIV cases along in the process. |
Ro Khanna | CA | B | Staffer | Highly dedicated and outspoken on the mission of Afghan evac. Willing to take on out-of-district cases; will not follow up on HP apps until they have been “in” for 90 days. |
Ben Sasse | NE | C | Multiple | Staff have written letters of support for some families, however follow-up has been minimal despite the fact that I am a constituent. |
Beth Van Duyne | TX | C | Personal email | Very concerned and responsive but either unable or unwilling to take any action. |
David Joyce | OH | C | Staffers | Staff are sympathetic and will expediently send emails and try to verify information, however they are not able to provide much more assistance. |
Richard Blumenthal | CT | C | Website and personal emails | Despite several attempts to reach out his office and staff members even send many emails and calls but no positive respond back from his side. |
Rob Portman | OH | C | Public contact info (Website/Social Media & Email) | Completly unresponsive to multiple calls, messages, and emails. After several weeks someone emailed me back thanking me for my concern about the situation at the southern border. UPDATE: Has been very helpful with spouses/fiances of US LPRs/Citizens. Also assigned me a caseworker for a family whose visas were at the embassy when it fell. Seems like they have started to get themselves together. |
Sherrod Brown | OH | C | Website Contact | Replied with template email saying the embassy was closed and that US has no presence in Afghanistan. Did however help an AMCIT expedite a fiance visa for Afghan national. |
Eleanor Holmes Norton | DC | D | Karen R. Owens | District Director | Hannah of Policy Office was amazing. She spoke on the phone with me personally for over 30 mins. She directed me to the Constituency Office. Once I was put in touch with them, they blew me off and send me a PDF from DOS that was very unhelpful. They ignored follow-up emails including one with photos of my Afghan injured and bleeding after being attacked. |
Hayley Stevens | MI | D | Staffer | Staffer tried to be helpful early on but ultimately contact stopped and no meaningful action was taken to constituents knowledge. Later called to leave a message about Humanitarian Parole Visa fees and the staffer had clearly never heard of HP, then got an email from the office about something entirely different like she sent the wrong canned response. |
Mark Amodei | NV | D | Staffer | Voice and email conversations with staffers. Responded with State website info. Wrote the Rep a position paper w/o response. No substantive assistance. |
Michael Bennet | CO | D | Maida Pearce – Constituent Advocate – Immigration | While initially helpful in collecting information on those in need of assistance, staffers have been unhelpful to the point of obstructionist in moving beyond first contact- have requested information not applicable to parole cases and in several instances, have not moved past ROI form. |
Mo Brooks | AL | D | Staffer/Congressman | Staffer within the office is highly sympathetic to SIVs and Afghan evac. Very quick response time and very proactive in reaching out to OGAs for assistance. The congressman himself has repeatedly voted against the SIV program and has stated directly in a meeting that he opposes Afghans entering the United States. Will not vote in support of pro-SIV measures. |
Andy Kim | NJ | F | Public contact info (Website/Social Media & Email) | Never responded to emails, Tweets, Facebook or SIV Registration Form. |
Chris Murphy | CT | F | Joanne cannon personal email | Despite several attempts to reach out his office and staff members even send many emails and calls but no positive respond back from his side. |
Chuck Schumer | NY | F | None – unresponsive | Unresponsive to LPR of New York attempting to evacuate her at-risk green card pending husband. |
Don Beyer | VA | F | Website Contact | No response, even after multiple emails over the course of two months explaining the desperate situation of Afghans and volunteers trying to assist them. |
Jason Crow | CO | F | Alejandra Zepeda personal Email. Jason Crow website email | Nonresponsive despite several attempts to reach out to his office by email and website. |
John Cornyn | TX | F | Website Contact | Autoreply. No further contact. |
John Hickenlooper | CO | F | Website Contact | Nonresponsive despite several attempts to reach out to his office by email and website. |
Mark Warner | VA | F | Website Contact | Only response was an automated Afghanistan-specific reply, even after multiple e-mails over the course of two months explaining the desperate situation of Afghans and volunteers trying to assist them. E-mails since the initial automated response have not been answered. |
Ted Cruz | TX | F | Website Contact | No response at all to multiple queries. |