By Jim Puzzanghera and Julian E.J. Sorapuru Globe Staff
WASHINGTON — When people fear that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have taken a family member into custody, they frequently contact their local member of Congress. Staffers for those lawmakersthen reach out to a special ICE office to try to track down any information.
“They walk into our office here in Springfield and they say, ‘I don’t know if it was Springfield police, I don’t know if it was State Police. I don’t know if it was a federal agent,’ ” said Jack Chamberland, a spokesperson for Representative Richard Neal, a Springfield Democrat. “So our role was facilitating the connection with them and their loved one by figuring out who took them and where they’re being held.”
But since the federal government shut down on Oct. 1, the lines of communication to the ICE Office of Congressional Relations are silent. And that has stopped the flow of crucial information.
“Due to the current hiatus in federal funding . . . staff are currently out of the office and unable to respond to emails, phone calls, or peform other work-related duties,” reads part of a bounceback email from the office, in red print with several typos.
It’s just one of the problems that have begun rippling out of Washington to New England and beyond as the shutdown stretched into its third week.
Lawmakers and staffers in 10 congressional offices across New England said their constituents are struggling to get answers from the federal government to vital questions, including the status of necessities such as housing, health care, and food assistance.
“People hear about a shutdown and they immediately worry: Is something I depend on going to be impacted?” said Representative Gabe Amo of Rhode Island. “People call and if they hit a dead end, that accelerates the calls to places like United Way 211, who are often the last resort.”
He visited United Way’s Providence call center on Oct. 2 and learned that the nonprofit experienced a 30 percent increase in call volumeon the first day of the shutdown.
At least 700,000 federal workers have been furloughed since government funding lapsed on Oct. 1, when nearly all Senate Democrats again blocked a temporary spending bill because Republicans would not meet their demand to include an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act health insurance premium subsidies that expire on Dec. 31. Hundreds of thousands of other federal employees continue to work without pay.
As the political stalemate continues — the Senate again failed to pass a temporary spending bill on Thursday and adjourned until next week — the frustrations of average Americans are growing.
“Our office has heard from constituents — including first responders, local energy projects, and more — who are receiving no information at all from the Trump administration about how to access time-sensitive reimbursements and federal grants,” said a spokesperson for Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.
Amo said he’s especially concerned that if the federal government remains unfunded for weeks to come, a Department of Agriculture program that provides food assistance to mothers and children from low-income households could be in jeopardy.
The White House provided $300 million in tariff revenue to keep the program — known as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — going through the end of October. But Amo, who introduced legislation this month aimed at keeping the program funded through a lengthy shutdown, is skeptical.
“I don’t take the president at his word on any of his schemes to move money around the federal government,” he said.
Other federal programs are also running out of money. A Greater Boston housing official said local housing authorities across the state have received no correspondence from the Department of Housing and Urban Development about whether rental assistance vouchers for low-income people will be fully funded in the coming months.
If the shutdown continues and the worst-case scenario comes to pass, it would damage the credibility of the program and endanger housing for people who depend on it in one of the country’s most expensive markets, said the housing official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the federal government.
“There’s a chance that landlords could start eviction processes,” the official said. “Whether they get 80 percent of [rent] or none of it, they can begin eviction on a tenant for no fault of their own.”
In Vermont’s Champlain Valley, local officials in charge of Head Start — a Department of Health and Human Services program that offers pre-elementary education to children from low-income households — are nervous that cash flow problems could jeopardize normal operations if the shutdown extends deepinto November.
According to a spokesperson for Representative Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat, average operating expenses for the program are $300,000 to $350,000 every two weeks.
Multiple congressional offices said veterans have had difficulty getting answers to questions about their benefits, with some customer service-based workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs furloughed.
A staffer for Representative Bill Keating, a Bourne Democrat, shared an email from the congressional liaison in the VA’s Boston regional office that said to “please direct all congressional inquiries to the White House.” Keating’s office got a similar response when trying to get information for a constituent from the Social Security Administration’s Hyannis office.
“Unfortunately, due to the restrictions of our agency’s shutdown-related contingency posture, I am unable to provide status on this case,” an employee there wrote. “Hopefully this will end soon and we can answer all your constituents inquiries.”
Neal, the Springfield representative, said people with tax questions for the Internal Revenue Service also have been stymied by the shutdown.
“They’re not even taking congressional inquiries,” he said of the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service, which helps people resolve problems. “You have people that conceivably could be facing federal charges who now can’t get answers from the Taxpayer Advocate or those within the IRS.”
The IRS has furloughed nearly half of its workers and closed most of its operations. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has furloughed just 8 percent of its workforce, according to the agency’s shutdown contingency plan.
But that apparently included the entire staff of the Office of Congressional Relations. The Washington Post also reported that the staff of ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight, which inspects facilities where immigrants are held, was furloughed.
“The shuttering of the ICE Office of Congressional Relations has already had grave effects on congressional offices’ ability to help families locate, reach, and connect their loved one with legal representation and advocate for basic due process,” said Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Boston Democrat, who called on Trump and the Republicans to make a deal to immediately reopen the federal government. “For families navigating an already opaque, unjust, and traumatic detention system, this is a dangerous obstacle in obtaining critical information and support for their loved ones in detention.”
