Constituent Services

Our office recently assisted a constituent, originally from Armenia, whose citizenship application was stuck in red tape, pending approval by USCIS. After taking the citizenship exam in 2024, she was waiting in limbo for two years and subsequently contacted our office for assistance in August. We were able to get her application reviewed, and upon approval, her oath was scheduled for this month. 

We congratulate our district’s newest citizen and wish her well as she continues pursuing her American Dream!

A local small business contacted our office about six months of payments from a third-party food-delivery app that were not received. We reached out to the service platform, and they initiated an investigation which discovered the merchant’s email was likely phished by an unauthorized third party who changed the bank account on file, causing some payouts to be sent to the wrong place. 

The app restored the restaurant’s account and reimbursed the small business over $16,000, helping them recover nearly all impacted payments.

Our office assisted two constituents who realized that their U.S. passports were expired and had plans to travel a week later. It would normally take 4-6 weeks which would gave caused them to miss their vacation.

Within one day of contacting our office, our office secured appointments for them to apply for U.S. passports directly at the New York Passport Agency. As a result, they were able to successfully obtain their passports and proceed with their scheduled travel.

Our office recently had a constituent contact us after Social Security inadvertently stopped her payments for two months and she was unable to resolve the issue on her own. With our office's assistance, the two months of payments were direct deposited into her account and her benefits are now back on schedule.

Our office recently helped a constituent who was of retirement age, still working and receiving health coverage through her husband’s job. She was originally wrongly told she could wait to sign up for Medicare Part B but she needed to have applied when she first became eligible. When she finally applied after retiring, she was hit with a 20% penalty for signing up late. After our office stepped in, we were able to get the penalty removed and help her get enrolled without the extra cost.

A constituent recently contacted our office after several years of unsuccessfully trying to correct his birthdate on his Social Security record so he could apply for benefits and Medicare. 

Despite repeated attempts to get his records rectified on his own, it wasn’t until our office intervened that the issue was finally resolved. Now he can apply for his long-overdue Social Security and Medicare benefits without penalty.

A constituent recently reached out to our office after struggling to receive his 2024 joint tax refund. The IRS was unable to process the return due to issues verifying W-2 information from both employers. Despite repeated follow-ups, the Taxpayer Advocate Service continued to say the return was simply “processing.”