DENVER — What happens when you reach out to a Congressperson for help in a crisis?
There are 200,000 Americans currently in Israel.
A Colorado family member of one of those Americans reached out to members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation for help trying to get their child home from Israel.
That child, who does not want their identity known out of fear of being targeted in Israel, has had several flights canceled in their effort to leave the country following the attacks by Hamas.
Their parent emailed Colorado’s Democratic Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, as well as Democratic Congresswomen Brittany Pettersen and Diana DeGette.
They received an auto reply response from Pettersen’s office. It read, in part: “Your opinion has been noted and your voice has been heard.”
Two hours later, a foreign affairs issues staffer for Pettersen emailed back with a link to the State Department’s crisis intake form, along with two phone numbers to help citizens connect with the U.S. Embassy in Israel.
An email response from a Hickenlooper constituent advocate staffer also provided the same State Department information.
“So, let’s talk about what happened in COVID, we had to evacuate Americans from all over the world,” former Colorado Congressman Ed Perlmutter said.
Perlmutter, who left Congress in 2022, said that behind the scenes, there is direct contact between Congressional offices and the State Department.
“I’m sure the State Department is already in contact with our members of Congress and with our Senators as to the procedure to help people exit Israel, if that’s what those people want to do,” Perlmutter said.
When he was in Congress in 2020, Perlmutter helped constituents get home from Peru and Asia at the start of the COVID pandemic.
“We worked with the State Department. We worked with the airlines. And over the course of a couple weeks, got everybody home,” Perlmutter said.
Even now that he is out of Congress, Perlmutter is helping with a request that goes the other way.
“I had gotten a call just the opposite, a distant cousin of mine whose passport had expired wanted to go to Israel to help out. He’s got a medical background and he wanted to go to Israel to help out,” Perlmutter said. “There will be people from America that want to go to Israel to help them, and there will be Americans in Israel who will want to come home.”
Perlmutter said he reached out to his cousin’s congressperson to help with expediting a new passport.
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