While serving as a caseworker in a congressional district office, I had the opportunity to help many constituents in a direct, tangible way by working with executive agency liaisons to resolve their immigration problems. This experience was extremely gratifying and inspired me to pursue a career in public service.

To this day, one of the best experiences I can recollect is calling a constituent to deliver good news. I remember with complete clarity the anticipation of hearing the person’s reaction after telling them that their immigration problem was resolved. While I have picked up the phone countless times to call a constituent—to ask for documentation, to confirm an email address, to inquire further into the timeline or sequence of events, or, frequently, to convey bad news—sprinkled throughout, there were those special occasions when I had the privilege of telling the constituent that we had solved their immigration problem.

To those who have never faced immigration troubles, this may seem like a small thing. But for many, the outcome of a case would be life-changing.

“The Congressman is thrilled that we were able to reach a positive resolution!”

My delivery was always the same, but I received a variety of reactions in response. Usually, I would hear a gasp or disbelieving-yet-hopeful exclamations like “No way!” or “Are you sure?” I was almost always bestowed with repeated effusive thanks, and, frequently, attempts to deliver beautiful flower arrangements or gift baskets—all of which were returned pursuant to congressional ethics rules. And sometimes, although rarely, the constituent was suddenly overwhelmed with tears of joy. Regardless of the response, it was the best feeling in the world knowing I had played a small role in someone’s immigration story.

While truly humbling and inspiring, my experience as a caseworker also allowed me to identify several flaws in the current system of legislative casework that must be fixed, primarily with regard to immigration casework. I encountered many areas for improvement where procedural limitations or agency unresponsiveness rendered my role as a congressional caseworker virtually useless. In addition, I worked plenty of cases where several constituents were facing the same problem, indicating systemic problems at federal immigration agencies that should be resolved at the source. 

I undoubtedly believe that legislative casework is an essential constituent service. It is one of the few ways that people can receive direct assistance from their elected representative in Congress, and it provides an important window into the human impact of federal programs and policies on individual constituents. However, this decades-old process can be improved to ensure that district staff members are providing meaningful assistance to constituents seeking help, and also to ensure that the process is utilized to maximize its potential for positive change.

What Is Legislative Casework?

Constituents who are experiencing a difficulty related to a federal agency, such as Social Security or veterans’ benefits, can reach out to their Senator or Member of Congress for assistance. To begin the process, the constituent must complete a casework authorization form granting the office permission to investigate the matter on their behalf, as well as provide all relevant documentation. After receiving these documents, the congressional office determines whether to open a case for the constituent.

Two factors that determine whether a congressional office is able to work a particular case are 1) whether the individual’s home address is located within the Member’s congressional district and 2) whether the individual’s problem pertains to a federal agency. If the two criteria are not met, a staff member will refer the individual either to their correct Member of Congress or to the appropriate state representative or agency with jurisdiction. If the criteria are satisfied, the office opens a case in the constituent’s name and assigns it to the district staff member who handles that issue area. That caseworker works with the constituent and congressional liaisons at the pertinent federal agency to resolve the problem.

House and Senate rules, as well as laws and regulations governing federal executive agency activities, impose strict rules limiting the extent of advocacy that congressional staff members may perform on behalf of their constituents. Staff members may not force an agency to expedite a case or act in favor of a constituent, but they can “intervene to facilitate the appropriate administrative process, encourage an agency to give a case consideration, and sometimes advocate for a favorable outcome.” 

According to the House and Senate ethics manuals, Senators and Members may:

1. request information or a status report, 
2. urge prompt consideration, 
3. arrange for interviews or appointments, 
4. express judgments, 
5. call for reconsideration of an administrative response that the Member believes is not reasonably supported by statutes, regulations, or considerations of equity or public policy, or
6. perform any other service of a similar nature consistent with the provisions of the rules of the House or Senate. 

Members and staff are prohibited from making off the record comments, receiving anything of value in exchange for providing casework assistance, or improperly pressuring agency officials.

While all congressional district offices engage in some level of legislative casework, the amount and type of casework varies considerably among districts. The demographic makeup of a district is particularly determinative, with significant populations of immigrants, veterans, or elderly people leading to heavy caseloads involving the federal agencies that serve those groups. The economic background of the district is also influential, as low-income districts tend to use casework services more than middle-income districts. Some types of casework are seasonal, such as requests for assistance with the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) near tax filing deadlines, or directly correlated to current events, such as the flood of requests for help with the Small Business Administration (SBA) after the federal government’s COVID-19 relief programs and the deluge of passport requests after many countries lifted their travel restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite these variations among districts, there has been a steady increase in the demand for casework service overall in congressional district offices. A study conducted by the Congressional Management Foundation in 1998 found that congressional offices more than doubled their caseloads since the 1980s. Although there are no studies confirming current figures, anecdotal evidence from long-term congressional staff members suggests that this upward trend in the volume of casework has continued in the last two decades.

My Experience as an Immigration Caseworker

As an immigration caseworker, I assisted constituents who were facing a myriad of immigration problems. In some cases, the constituent had filed a petition on behalf of a fiancé, spouse, or family member who was currently abroad waiting for approval, and in other cases, the constituent was the stateside beneficiary seeking assistance with employment or travel authorization while awaiting status. Regardless of the specific challenge, these individuals faced procedural and substantive difficulties with their pending immigration applications and contacted our office for help.

After taking on a new case, I would read the file to determine the constituent’s immigration problem and which agency I would need to work with, typically either the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or the Department of State (DOS). Next, I would reach out to the relevant congressional liaison at that agency and work with them to resolve the constituent’s case. Sometimes this process was straightforward and resolved quickly with just one or two emails or calls back and forth with the liaison. Other times, however, the process dragged on, with the agency liaison unit either entirely unresponsive or unable to provide a substantive response. Unfortunately, in most cases, a roadblock like this would halt the process entirely, and the constituent’s casefile would be added to the “not yet resolved” stack.

I encountered a wide array of immigration issues faced by constituents, ranging from simple to complex. Although there were undoubtedly some atypical and obscure cases, for the most part I handled very similar cases. Below are a few examples of both common cases and atypical ones, each used as a model for policy recommendations.

Case Study: Expedited Processing for Employment Documents

A large portion of my cases involved applications for employment authorization that were outside of standard processing time. Employment authorization documents (EADs) allow foreign nationals to work in the United States while pending approval for immigration status. They typically expire after one year and require an application for renewal if the underlying application is still pending at the time of expiration. This immigration benefit is critical, allowing those awaiting status to earn a living while their applications are processed by USCIS—which takes several months or even years, depending on the application filed and the foreign national’s immigration category.

When I began working for the congressman, the standard processing time for EAD applications was ninety days. As of today, the USCIS website states that the EAD processing time ranges from two to thirteen months at the Texas Service Center to seven to fourteen months at the California Service Center. These extended processing times are unprecedented and unacceptable, forcing immigrants to go extended periods of time without work. 

The overwhelming majority of my EAD cases involved constituents 1) who had received a job offer and were seeking expedited processing of their EAD application before the job start date or 2) who were seeking expedited processing of their EAD renewal application before their current EAD expired to remain employed. In the first case, those who were not approved in time lost the job opportunity and continued in limbo for weeks or months without pay. In the second case, those with expired work permits would either be placed on unpaid leave, losing their income and their driver’s license, or they would be fired entirely. 

In both cases, immigrants facing these circumstances drain their savings, max out their credit cards, borrow from friends, and ultimately, resort to under-the-table jobs in order to make ends meet. These applicants do not even have the option to return to their home countries while they wait, as leaving the United States while their status is pending amounts to abandonment of the application.

Some other EAD cases involved students who had received a scholarship for an advanced degree program but could not begin the program or accept the funds without a valid work permit. A delay in this case resulted in the student being forced to defer an entire year until the next program start date—and only if they were lucky enough to keep their spot.

Although the government does not track how many applicants have had their permits expire while waiting for a renewal, officials estimate that at its worst in early 2022, hundreds per day were losing permission to work. These prolonged processing times are largely due to the coronavirus pandemic. USCIS is primarily funded through application fees, and the sudden drop in applications during the pandemic gutted the agency’s budget and led to a hiring freeze. Further, the closure of in-person offices in 2020 worsened the already long processing times.

While the complete derailment of processing times can be attributed to the pandemic, the problem existed long beforehand and largely stems from the agency’s budgeting issues.  A complete overhaul of the USCIS budget is in order to ensure that the agency has guaranteed funding—not contingent on applications—and sufficient funding to allow timely processing of applications. In the meantime, all current EADs should be automatically extended, and all work permits should remain valid for a longer period of time to cut down on renewal applications.

Case Study: Temporary Visa for Urgent Medical Need

One of the most gratifying cases I worked on involved a constituent who was suffering from kidney failure. She was on the waiting list to receive a kidney transplant but was told that she would have to wait between six and eight years to get a donor. Against all odds, she found a living donor who was also a match—but the donor lived in Eastern Europe and had been denied a visitor visa to the United States for lack of sufficient economic ties to the country of origin. 

The donor needed to prove that there were sufficient funds to pay for the cost of the transplant operation, that she would be able to financially support herself during her time in the United States both before the operation and during the recovery period, and that she had compelling reasons to return to the country of origin such as real estate, employment, or close family. To make matters worse, this occurred during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when the United States Embassy had suspended in-person interviews for visitor visas.

After gathering a mountain of supporting documentation from the constituent and the donor, including a signed letter from the transplant surgeon, bank statements, translated property deeds, and proof of employment, the congressional liaison unit at the U.S. Embassy granted the donor an interview. At the time of the interview, she was granted a visitor visa. This particular case was one of the rare occasions when the good news I delivered was followed by the constituent’s tears of joy.

Despite the “happy ending,” I could not help but notice the failings of an immigration system that placed so many obstacles between a woman suffering from kidney failure and a ready-and-willing donor who happened to be a foreign national.  While I readily acknowledge that supporting documentation was necessary to substantiate the need for the visa, it should not have been nearly as difficult as it was to obtain a visa in the face of such a life-or-death emergency. There should be a separate category of temporary visas for cases such as these, where a foreign national must travel to the United States for extenuating medical reasons. These applications should be processed on an expedited basis in light of the severity of the medical emergency, while still ensuring enough time to vet the application for national security considerations.

While working with congressional liaison officers at various U.S. embassies, I discovered that consular officers are granted considerable discretion when making adjudicating decisions at the time of interview. This results in similar applications receiving different treatment depending on which officer is conducting the interview. Rather than conducting a balancing test of several factors, consular officers should be subject to more strict guidance as to what documentation does and does not meet the burden of proof. Further, officers should go through more comprehensive training, and the principal consular officer should conduct a thorough administrative review of all visa refusals to check for abuse of discretion.

Case Study: Immigrant Visa for a Doctor Studying Rare Disease

Another atypical case involved a constituent whose son was diagnosed with a rare progressive neuromuscular disease for which there is currently no treatment or cure. The constituent’s friends and family raised money to fund a three-year fellowship at a prestigious California university for the purpose of researching the disease and developing a drug for treatment. After a thorough selection process, the university found a Ph.D. candidate who was uniquely qualified to conduct the study. However, she happened to be born in Iran, and her application for an immigrant visa was stuck in administrative processing due to the Trump administration’s Muslim Ban.

I worked with contacts at the DOS to pursue any and all avenues to get the Ph.D. candidate’s visa application processed, attempting to get a waiver of the Muslim Ban as well as expedited processing so that she would arrive in the United States in time to start the research fellowship. After months of working the case, the applicant’s immigrant visa was granted, and she was able to begin searching for a cure alongside her university colleagues.

Although the Biden administration quickly reversed the Muslim Ban, the effects of the ban were vast. Imposing a blanket immigration ban on entire countries is not only morally wrong but also strategically unwise. While serving as an immigration caseworker during the Muslim Ban, I encountered many cases of extremely qualified doctors, engineers, and scientists whose applications were stuck in administrative processing solely because their country of origin was subject to the ban. In every case, the aspiring immigrants sought to bring their expertise and skill to America.

Further, while there is a category of immigrant visas for those with “extraordinary abilities” and “outstanding professors and researchers,” applicants must satisfy extensive requirements to qualify. Those who do not meet the criteria but have been selected for a niche fellowship or scholarship opportunity should be able to pursue expedited processing. 

Problems with Immigration Casework

In addition to policy recommendations drawn from specific cases, my time as a congressional caseworker allowed me to identify key issues with legislative casework as a whole.

The first problem is that the availability of this resource is not widely known. I was disconcerted to find that most of the constituents I helped had only heard from a friend or acquaintance that they could contact their member of Congress for help with a federal agency issue. A New York Times opinion piece argues that casework only benefits a “tiny fraction of Americans,” particularly those who are “English-speaking,” “educated,” and “connected, who can write the most convincing letters.” While the piece advocated for abolishing this constituent service as a kind of “favoritism masquerading as compassion,” I think the better solution is to employ enhanced outreach to educate constituents about the services available to them, most importantly, casework services. 

These outreach mechanisms include opening small satellite offices in less populated areas in the district, holding frequent town meetings, issuing regular newsletters, posting repeated reminders on social media, and distributing brochures in low-income and immigrant communities. Although the concern about thorough outreach is that it will lead to a flood of case requests—most of which will be outside the bounds of federal jurisdiction and redirected to other offices—on an already-overburdened district staff, the bottom line is that effective public service cannot operate on the hope that constituents remain in the dark about the services available to them.

The next problem is that the quality of legislative casework is inconsistent across congressional offices and federal agencies due to the amount of discretion involved in the process. As discussed above, objective factors such as economic and demographic makeup determine the amount and type of congressional casework in a district office. However, additional factors within the Member’s control are also determinative of the quality of congressional work. A paper advocating for a greater social work presence in legislative casework notes that some Members place a high priority on direct constituent services, while others consider casework to be a low-priority item. The Member’s arbitrary estimation of their mission in Congress—and perhaps even their political beliefs about which constituency groups are more important—significantly impacts that office’s approach to legislative casework. This leaves too much to the discretion of the Member or their District Director, resulting in a disproportionate quality of constituent services among various districts.

While I was fortunate to work for a Member who prioritized casework and dedicated significant resources to this aspect of constituent service, I quickly discovered that not all offices—even in the same state or county—provide the same level of service to their constituents. Members who deem casework a lower priority allot a smaller portion of the budget to this service, resulting in just one or two caseworkers in an office, each handling more than a hundred cases at a given time. A casework guide written by a staffer with decades of experience in a district office goes so far as to describe a caseworker as “under-paid, over worked, and stressed.” Unfortunately, since constituents may only seek help from their designated Member, they are stuck with whatever importance that office bestows upon this service. 

Additionally, there is a considerable amount of discretion involved on the federal agency side of the casework process. Within a particular congressional liaison unit at a federal agency, the case inquiries from Member offices are divided among several liaisons. Since I often worked with the same liaison units in the course of my immigration casework, I quickly learned that each unit provided a different degree of helpfulness. For example, while working with USCIS, I found that each of the six USCIS service centers had different response times and different reputations for “cooperativeness.” Within a few months, I discovered that the success of a case was dependent in part not only on which service center I was working with, but also which specific liaison my case had been assigned to. 

Unfortunately, this is because while agency liaisons are subject to statutes and regulations governing their activities, these parameters leave room for a certain amount of discretion on behalf of the liaison. For example, while USCIS lays out a list of criteria that must be met before an expedite request may be granted, each liaison may decide for themselves based on the caseworker’s inquiry whether that particular case does in fact meet the expedite criteria. The USCIS website directly states that “not every circumstance that fits in one of these categories will result in expedited processing,” and the agency “has the sole discretion to decide whether to accommodate a request.” 

In addition, many liaisons acknowledge that they suffer an even heavier casework load than congressional staffers, suggesting that agencies do not allot adequate resources to liaison offices to manage the volume of inquiries flooding in from congressional offices across the nation. This build-up of cases leads to more cookie-cutter form letters, less attention to each individual case, fewer substantive responses to congressional offices, and ultimately, no resolution for the constituent.

An overhaul of the legislative casework system must incorporate adjustments in congressional office procedures as well as changes in federal agency liaison offices. Any component of immigration that leaves room for discretion opens the door to arbitrary decisions based on personal opinion or animus. Discretion must be removed from the process or at least more closely and regularly audited to test for abuse. Constituents facing the same immigration problem should not receive a different response depending on who their Member is or where their immigration file happens to be located. 

Senators and Members should be required to dedicate a set amount of resources to casework in their district offices proportionate to the volume of work, and periodic audits should be conducted to determine the quality of casework in an office, perhaps by tracking the ratio of case requests to cases resolved. Further, liaison units at agencies such as USCIS and DOS should be allotted more resources to lessen the burden on individual liaisons and improve the quality of assistance provided to congressional offices.

Casework is not being utilized to realize its full potential as a form of congressional oversight. Casework inquiries and individual constituent problems provide critical micro-level insights into executive agency activities, providing an early warning to Members that an agency or program is not functioning as Congress intended. These insights can lead to additional oversight of that agency or program or the consideration of further legislation to remedy the problem at the source. However, despite the clear value of casework as a source of congressional oversight, the service is underutilized for this purpose. 

While the Congressional Oversight Manual does include casework as one method of congressional oversight, the 127-page document only dedicates two paragraphs to this subject, perhaps indicating its relative importance compared with other techniques of oversight such as performance audits and special investigations. A study conducted in 1979 interviewed Members of Congress, their Washington and district staff members, and officials in agency legislative liaison offices to determine the extent to which constituent casework is used to identify and solve problems with federal agencies. The study found that social security, veterans’ benefits, tax policy, and grant or loan eligibility are the areas in which legislation most frequently flows from constituent casework. Although there are no recent studies showing how often casework motivates legislation or policy changes today, anecdotal evidence suggests that casework issues are rarely elevated to the Member’s level and even more rarely do they result in the Member pursuing an institutional solution.

To maximize casework’s potential as an oversight tool, District staff should be required to track cases in an online database that can be filtered not only by case type or agency involved, but also by the constituent problem—for example, work permit applications significantly outside processing time—to identify the frequency of repeat problems. District staff should also be required to periodically provide casework summaries to the Washington staff to communicate to the policy team the problems that constituents in the district are facing and possible recommendations for how to solve these problems. Without regular and robust communication between the two offices, the non-constituent-facing Washington office remains out-of-touch with the needs of the district.

I loved being a caseworker. I confronted problems I have never personally faced, I learned about my community and the people in it, and I had the good fortune to do work that tangibly changed someone’s life. But my experience taught me that we can do better.

A by-product of the system design is that the constituents I worked with had, more or less, reached the end of their rope. Our office was the last resort after a long journey of dead ends, unreturned voicemails, interminable hold times, perfunctory answers, and form letter responses. The sad truth was that every single constituent to whom I delivered good news was surprised—because they were expecting failure. These are glaring signs of dysfunctional federal policies and programs that must be reworked and reinforced.

Although the immigration system is vast and complex, legislative casework comprises a sliver of that system–and it too needs work. Through the lens of immigration casework, I found many opportunities to improve the quality and effectiveness of legislative casework. From better community outreach to the allocation of more resources to efforts to minimize discretion, there are many places to begin rebuilding the process. Ultimately, casework should be used as an oversight tool to solve constituent problems at the source—the federal agencies administering the laws passed by Congress.