WASHINGTON — Tissue holders sit atop the conference table where the congressman’s aides field frantic requests from constituents desperate for help in getting friends and loved ones out of Afghanistan before it’s too late.
The stories have poured in by the thousands with heartbreaking pleas not to be left behind.
The tissues are used for crying breaks, one of the aides explained.
“The hardest part is just the sense of helplessness,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. “We’re seeing all of this, you know, anxiety, and we can’t do enough.”
Across the county, the offices of members of Congress have become makeshift crisis centers, flooded with requests for help getting people onto one of the last flights leaving the Kabul airport before President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. military forces out of Afghanistan.