2026 is Off to a Running Start

Written By Anne Meeker

Hi caseworkers,

Happy 2026, welcome to the second quarter of the 21st century, and also welcome back to the first geopolitical Major Event of the year that will almost certainly show up in your casework if you’re in a district or state with a large Venezuelan community! One nice thing you can say for casework: you’ll also never be bored. Also, there is literally no news story that can’t be related back to casework somehow.

As usual, we have our roundup of agency news and news about casework for you — in particular, a roundup of YOUR year-end roundups. It is genuinely impressive to see the totals of cases closed and money returned that casework teams are able to post each year, and we know that there are a ton of stories behind those top-line numbers, representing hours of sweat and tears (hopefully no blood). Congratulations to all on a successful 2025!

On Team POPVOX Foundation, we are hard at work planning our resources and trainings for you for the year. As always: if there is anything specific we can help out with, whether that’s a webinar, resource, template, or question, connection, or space to vent: we are here for whatever you need, no matter what 2026 throws at us all. Reply to this email, or reach out at anne@popvox.org.

Anne Meeker
Managing Director
POPVOX Foundation

Casework News

Here are some major causes for applause from 2025. This list is strictly from my google alerts — if your office’s year-end report isn’t on here, please send it our way so we can say congrats!

It’s worth repeating that these numbers can be difficult to compare between states and districts, because different areas of the country just have different demands for casework (and because not all of these totals provide a clear time frame, and few provide details about what’s included in these totals and how they’re calculated. We get it! But just saying 🥰 ). However, on the whole, they demonstrate the real stakes involved in casework, and the direct, tangible benefits of having strong, competent casework teams. Congratulations!

  • In an interview with Federal Drive, POPVOX Foundation’s very own Danielle Stewart discussed three Congressional operations reforms in the Senate Legislative branch appropriations bill: a Legislative branch data map, the Case Compass data aggregator project (piloted by 50 offices), and expansion of CRS’s Congressional liaison directory to include regional contacts.

  • Rep. Grijalva [D, AZ] announced her first constituent office hours scheduled for late January, following a delayed November swearing-in.

  • Congratulations to Sen. Hassan’s [D, NH] team who helped a constituent locate their brother in Ukraine after eight months without communication.

  • The Washington Post profiled Sens. Collins [R, ME] and Ossoff [D, GA] for strong constituent services as an advantage heading into competitive 2026 reelections.

  • Civic, in partnership with Smith College, released a case study on AI-driven casework classification demonstrating how casework can be automatically classified at intake and how staff can query historical office archives using AI.

Agency News

Immigration

  • DHS walked back Secretary Noem’s statement that Venezuelans who lost TPS could apply for refugee status, clarifying that refugee applications are only available to people outside the US.

  • The Trump administration suspended the Diversity Visa Program, though immigration law experts question whether the Executive branch has authority to unilaterally end a program established by Congress.

  • A USCIS whistleblower alleges the agency is rejecting FOIA requests for immigration records using overly strict criteria, resulting in rejections increasing nearly eight-fold from 2024 to 2025.

  • A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for approximately 60,000 migrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, though the Supreme Court has allowed TPS terminations for other countries like Venezuela to proceed.

  • USCIS issued updated policy guidance for Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) self-petitions, effective immediately. Key changes require self-petitioners to prove they resided with the abuser during the qualifying relationship and provide primary evidence of good faith marriage including legally valid marriage certificates.

  • USCIS will replace the H-1B visa lottery with a weighted selection process prioritizing higher-skilled and higher-paid workers, effective February 27, 2026 for FY2027.

  • USCIS released its 2025 year-end review highlighting major enforcement actions. Most of this will not be new to experienced caseworkers, but may be worth a skim for anything that hasn’t come up in your caseload yet.

  • Just interesting: new research finds that Members of Congress with immigrant backgrounds are 12% more likely to vote for permissive immigration policies than their native-born colleagues, a pattern not seen in Canada or the UK where stronger party systems constrain individual voting.

Federal Employees

  • A story of OPM retirements, in three acts:

    • OPM director Scott Kupor addressed retirement processing delays affecting federal employees who separated in September, stating that outdated technology is the main challenge.

    • Two engineers share the story of how they rebuilt OPM’s retirement application system in weeks after scrapping a seven-year PowerApps effort, launching retire.opm.gov in June 2025. The new “Instant” retirement feature can process qualifying cases immediately rather than the typical six-month wait.

    • OPM’s December retirement processing statistics show claims inventory grew to 50,566 (up from 34,587 in October), with digital applications processing in 40 days versus 81 days for paper. OPM received 13,174 new claims in December but processed only 9,428.

State-administered Benefits

  • HHS paused child care funding to all states pending proof funds are being spent legitimately, requiring administrative data reviews and receipts or photo evidence following daycare fraud allegations in Minnesota.

  • Separately, the Trump administration froze $10 billion in TANF, child care subsidies, and social services funding to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, citing fraud in Minnesota but providing no evidence for the other four states — jeopardizing programs serving hundreds of thousands of low-income families.

  • Pennsylvania launched five new benefits application tools including a real-time status tracker (trackmybenefits.pa.gov) and AI document scanning that reduced illegible submissions by 80%, saving over 700 hours of staff time.

  • To be clear, we don’t endorse legislation, but this is an interesting approach that we’ll be curious to keep an eye on, if it passes: Sen. Husted [R, OH] introduced the Upward Mobility Act creating a five-year pilot allowing five states to combine funding from 10 federal anti-poverty programs with flexibility to phase out benefits gradually. The bill addresses “benefits cliffs” where small income increases trigger complete loss of assistance.

  • In a Federal Drive interview, Hyperscience CEO Andrew Joiner discussed how AI could address SNAP administration challenges. AI can automate document processing that currently consumes 80% of caseworkers’ time. The technology reduced VA claims processing from 3-6 months to under 3 days for 11 million veterans.

Miscellaneous

  • Congress unveiled a bipartisan spending package funding Commerce, Energy, Interior, Justice, EPA, Forest Service, and NASA through FY2026. Key provisions block agency reorganizations, preserve science funding (NSF cut 3% vs. proposed 57%), and require staffing restoration at National Park Service, Indian Health Service, and National Weather Service.

  • The Senate passed the Disaster Assistance Simplification Act, which would require FEMA to create a single universal application for federal disaster assistance across all agencies, replacing the current system with separate applications for FEMA, SBA loans, and other programs.

  • A new OIG report reveals SSA’s reported “average speed of answer” of 15.9 minutes masks much longer actual wait times — callers who stayed on hold averaged 59 minutes, while callback requests averaged one hour and 51 minutes.

  • House VA Committee Chairman Bost [R, IL] introduced four bills to reform VA education and workforce programs, including adding accountability to the Veteran Readiness and Employment program and creating a Veterans Economic Opportunity and Transition Administration.

  • Starting July 1, 2026, federal student loans will cap graduate students at $20,500 annually ($100,000 lifetime), professional degree students at $50,000 annually ($200,000 lifetime), and Parent Plus loans at $20,000 annually ($65,000 per student), affecting one-third of graduate borrowers — while repayment plans consolidate from seven to two options and Pell Grant eligibility expands to short-term career programs but excludes families with foreign income or significant assets.

  • Seventeen senators warned IRS staffing cuts — the agency lost 25% of its workforce last year — threaten the 2026 filing season. The IRS needs 11,000 call center representatives to maintain service levels but may only answer 16% of calls without hires.

  • The 2026 NDAA includes provisions from the Military Family Bill of Rights, developed by active-duty spouses through the Secure Families Initiative. Key protections require information be provided 45 days before a Permanent Change of Station on education systems, special needs services, crime statistics, and area demographics, plus access to crime and conviction information on military installations.

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Anne Meeker
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