It was wonderful to see so many of you last Tuesday at our panel on Closing the Feedback Loop through Casework, and our happy hour (and for a few of you, on CSPAN!)! It was one of the coolest moments of running this program to see conversations between caseworkers, agency liaisons, policy staff, think tankers, journalists, and support offices all happening in one place at one time — and everyone coming away believing in the power of casework, if they didn’t already. Hope it was a smooth trip back for everyone who came to town for the CAO’s fly-in conference, and for everyone else, we’ll look forward to catching you on the next one.

As usual, a roundup of news stories that may show up in casework soon below, and we’ll note that it’s been an especially busy week of updates on ICE — so many that we’ve broken those out into their own section.

If you have questions about our work or suggestions for how we can be helpful, please feel free to reply to this email, or reach out to me at anne@popvox.org.

Anne Meeker
Deputy Director
POPVOX Foundation

ICYMI: Closing the Feedback Loop Through Casework

Last week, we were delighted to partner with the Niskanen Center to host a panel discussion for caseworkers and legislative staff on closing the feedback loop between casework and policy. Thanks for your patience with our livestream difficulties — if you missed the panel, we have the video posted and a wrap-up post with takeaways and the conversation transcript.

(I’ll also flag that Crystal very kindly offered to get in touch with any offices that might want to talk through their processes in more depth — please feel free to reach out!)

Closing the Feedback Loop Through Casework

Casework teams have rich insight into program implementation (including direct agency contacts) that can be an important source of information for legislation and oversight, and legislative teams can help contextualize and address the systemic challenges that bog down casework teams. New tools from the House are poised to supercharge this relationship.

Watch

Hearings Roundup

Senate Veterans Affairs

Previously: Hearings to Examine correcting mismanagement of the veterans crisis line

House Veterans Affairs

Casework News

Some casework wins in the House Legislative Branch Appropriations bill! As always, let’s caveat that this bill is FAR from finalized, but we are excited to see provisions:
- requiring the Library of Congress to examine the feasibility of including regional and processing center contacts on its Congressional liaison list,
- commending the casework support offered by the CAO Coach program and the House Digital Services CaseCompass project, and
- requiring the CAO to provide regular updates on its efforts to monitor, regulate, and support the use of AI by Member offices.
New casework van just dropped! Congrats to the team for Rep. Bresnahan [R, PA] on the “Bresna-Van.” Carolina Cruiser and CARES Vans, y’all have competition.
Office hours that turn into listening sessions are always tough, but it sounds like the team from Rep. Gray’s [D, CA] office handled it with grace.
Nice writeup of Sen. McCormick [R, PA]’s approach to his first year on the job, including his model for constituent services and biweekly teletown halls.
Reflections on the role of caseworkers from Mike Holland.
For House staff, the Office of Employee Assistance is hosting a summer series of webinars on “Navigating Constituent Interactions,” including sessions on working with constituents in distress, mental health first aid, suicide prevention, and vicarious trauma. More info and signups at OEA’s website on HouseNet.
Folks communicating with constituents on WhatsApp (especially immigration cases), please be aware that the House CAO has recently banned WhatsApp on staffers’ devices out of security concerns.
The House Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds released a new secure intake portal for communicating with whistleblowers, which can be integrated into offices’ CRMs.
I had a delightful conversation with Terry Gerton on Federal Drive about disaster casework.

Agency News

ICE

The Department of Homeland Security has tightened rules for Members of Congress and staff around unannounced visits to ICE field offices and detention facilities. Members are now required to submit notice of a visit 72 hours in advance, and ICE retains the authority to reject these visits.
WIRED has a new feature examining 911 calls from ICE detention facilities.
It was a confusing week with conflicting guidance issued by ICE and the President on whether the agency would limit immigration raids on farms, restaurants, and hotels. It appears that this guidance has been rolled back, and ICE will maintain a 3,000-day arrest quota.
ICE also received direction from President Trump to prioritize detentions and deportations in America’s largest cities, including LA, Chicago, and New York.
Other agencies, including the TSA and IRS, are also providing staff to ICE to assist in detention and deportation activities.
ICE detainees tore down a wall in an escape attempt at a facility in New Jersey last week.

Other Immigration

Jay Bishop from CBP has some wise words for offices to share with constituents experiencing trouble with Global Entry — it’s always worth making the declaration!
The State Department announced new requirements that all applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas must set their social media accounts to “public” to facilitate screening.
The Department of State issued a worldwide travel advisory for Americans abroad, due to heightened tensions around the US’ military involvement in Iran. Now may be a good time to remind your constituents to enroll in the STEP program when they plan international travel!
#AfghanEvac and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) have teamed up on a new program pairing Afghan immigrants who served with US military members with US veterans to attend immigration court appearances.
The Trump Administration sued all 15 justices of the Maryland federal bench over a temporary order stopping the administration from deporting immigrants with open habeas petitions for at least a day.
Rodney Scott was confirmed by the Senate as the new US Customs and Border Protection head.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling on the Trump Administration’s plan to end birthright citizenship on Friday that limits the power of federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions.

VA

Some disturbing allegations from AFGE Local 17 on workplace conditions inside the VA’s Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs.
The Veterans Experience Office and National Vet Resources Community of Practice are hosting a community convening in Colorado next month focused on sharing veterans’ resources and bringing community organizations together on veteran suicide prevention.

IRS

The National Taxpayer Advocate released TAS’s mid-year objectives report to Congress, noting that the IRS handled its most successful filing season ever — of the 141 million returns filed, 138 million were processed without issues. The report also lays out TAS’s priorities in advocating to the IRS and in conducting research on improving the taxpayer experience — lots of casework overlap.
Relatedly, USA Facts has a nice fact sheet about how much it costs the IRS to collect tax revenue.
However, GAO released a new report calling for the IRS to strengthen oversight of its vendors providing identity verification for online tax filing.

FEMA + Emergency Management

FEMA is adding additional scrutiny to requests for disaster mitigation assistance, and has denied at least six requests this year.
Several big changes to DHS funding in the House Homeland Security Appropriations bill, including an additional $1billion for ICE and $4.5 billion for FEMA above last year’s levels.
With tensions still high in the middle east, DHS issued a warning that US infrastructure may be at increased risk of cyberattacks. It may be a good idea for offices to review some disaster planning resources from FEMA and DHS just to be prepared, especially on cyber events.
Coverage of how local disaster relief groups are preparing for this year’s wildfire/hurricane season.

SSA

Buried in here — SSA has started processing disability determinations in a new, centralized Federal determination process. We’re certainly curious to hear more.
Social Security replaced its page on customer service metrics with a more limited dashboard of call wait times this week. Commissioner Frank Bisignano said the change was part of SSA’s reevaluations of its customer service metrics.
The NYT has a deep dive into how DOGE worked at SSA.

Changes coming to USPS?

DOGE has held multiple meetings with USPS staff on ways to improve USPS performance and efficiency — apparently going broader than the initial MOU scope signed by outgoing postmaster Louis DeJoy.

DON’T BELIEVE STUDENT LOAN HACKS ON TIKTOK

Hello, this is a gigantic PSA that you can’t “delete” your student loan obligations by contesting them on your credit reports. Thank you.

Understanding Medicare Part B as a federal retiree

Explainer from GovExec’s Tammy Flanagan on how Medicare Part B and federal retiree employee health benefits interact.

LGBTQ veterans eligible for pardon face difficulties applying

Of the thousands of veterans eligible for a pardon for discharges related to their sexual orientation, only 21 have applied and only four have received a full pardon.

DOGE looking to cut ATF regulations

The DOGE team at ATF has announced a plan to cut at least 47 regulations by July 4, possibly including changing the responsibilities of certain ATF positions, updating firearm import rules, and making licensing fees refundable.

Watching SNAP and Medicaid

If you caught our SNAP webinar a few weeks ago, we discussed how offices can and should be tracking proposed cuts to SNAP and Medicaid that may have ripple effects impacting federal casework. The TL;DR at this point in the process is that the Senate’s version of the reconciliation bill contains more cuts to Medicaid than the House bill, but the Senate parliamentarian rejected additional SNAP cuts as not eligible for inclusion. We’ll keep an eye on this and keep you updated.

PA makes progress on a “no wrong door” overhaul of its services

Pennsylvania has a nice example of how an in-house digital services team has been working to bring multiple agency websites offering different services together into one “no wrong door” PA.gov website.

Newsletter: Caseworkers and Field Reps Take DC