Washington Examiner 
By. Emily Brooks

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Congressional staff and members frantically working to help U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, and family members escape from Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the country have received harrowing reports of the chaotic situation in the final days before and after the military’s withdrawal.

From being on the phone with individuals dodging gunfire to messages describing Taliban beating U.S. citizens, lives are on the line as an ever-changing security landscape hamstrings staff members working long hours to assist those stranded.

One message screenshot shared with the Washington Examiner, which is not being directly quoted to protect the identities and safety of those still in Kabul, describes a group of U.S. citizens who arranged for transportation to the airport. The Taliban only let a few through, beating the rest and firing gunshots over their heads, sending them running.

Now that the U.S. military has fully withdrawn from the Kabul airport, some Americans and their families are left in limbo.

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon’s Deputy chief of staff Felix Ungerman, a retired Air Force colonel, has worked cases since Kabul fell to the Taliban. Earlier this week, he was on the phone with a U.S. citizen in Kabul reporting to a citizen's access point, which he had tried to access for days. Then, the Taliban started to fire.

“He goes, ‘Oh my god, he's shooting.’ And I said, ‘Please get away from there, go get to safety,’" Ungerman said. “His phone cut off while I could hear gunshots going off, and I couldn't get in touch with him again. I tried calling his cellphone every couple of hours to see if I could get him, tried an email, sent him a text message. And it wasn't until [Tuesday] morning that he actually texted me back and said, ‘Yeah, I'm OK, but now what do I do?’ I'm like, ‘You get to somewhere safe, and you stay there until we can — our government can offer some solutions to help you.’”

Another citizen he worked with heeded the U.S. Embassy’s recommendation earlier this year to make plans to leave the country on a commercial flight, but she booked a ticket for the first week of September — not expecting the country would fall to the Taliban weeks before her departure date. She didn't think she could get to Kabul safely as a single woman. Now, she doesn’t know what to do or how to leave.

Congressional offices often help constituents navigate government bureaucracy to help get services, but coordinating evacuees from a crumbling war zone is a whole other story. Some worked 18- or 20-hour days while trying to coordinate escapes.

“We had to build a process,” an aide to Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw said. “There was no guidance. There’s no playbook for this.”

Staff members and lawmakers who are veterans often relied on their personal networks and connections to help coordinate in Kabul. Offices took differing approaches, with some focused on directly connecting those escaping with military teams, crowd-sourcing contacts to communicate which gates evacuees had success getting through on different days, or verifying which messages were official information from the government.

A major point of frustration was when Taliban guards running checkpoints, who were supposed to let Americans through, did not want to let Afghan-Americans through.

California Republican Rep. Mike Garcia’s office worked with an Afghan-American mother and her citizen children who were blocked at a checkpoint. She sent a video sitting in a car in the dark, holding up their four blue passports, and asking what she can do as a young child called for “mama” in the background.

“This is why you don't rely on the Taliban to be the ones monitoring the checkpoints,” said Garcia, a former Navy pilot.

One Afghan-American citizen who worked with Bacon’s office said the Taliban “were creating as much problem as they could.” After the State Department told him to go to the Interior Ministry, he encountered a Taliban guard and explained he was told to go there.

“He told me, ‘Go and tell the State Department to f*** themselves.’”

He eventually got into the Kabul airport after taking a big risk outside the gate during a firefight, in which guards shot at peoples’ feet to disperse the crowd.

“Everybody run away,” he said. It was the day after the ISIS-K bombing at Abbey Gate. “I know it was stupid, but I took just my chance. I ran towards the soldiers. I had my passport in my hand — shouting that I'm an American citizen.”

He, his wife, and four small children have since made it to the United States.

Often, congressional offices found contacting the State Department to get guidance or the status about particular individuals was as helpful as receiving an out-of-office message. However, response times have picked up for some offices now that the military is gone from Kabul.

The aide to Bacon said one American citizen repeatedly signed up for State Department’s system to get updates on when to get to the airport. He also tried to sign her up, but she did not get alerts for days.

Crenshaw’s office worked with one large group — including American citizens, lawful permanent residents, special immigrant visa holders, and yellow badge holders who worked for the U.S. Embassy plus their family members — that had arranged for a charter flight to escape. The State Department pulled the clearance for the charter plane after the ISIS-K bombing attack last week, and now they are trying to come up with an alternative plan. As of Tuesday, they had trouble getting the State Department to help coordinate overflight rights from Saudi Arabia and coordination to land in Jordan.

"Where we were successful is where we weren't necessarily beholden or waiting on the State Department,” Garcia said. “In fact, all of our successes — we ended up getting roughly 97 folks out successfully — these were all folks that we were able to do so through our own channels and folks on the ground there that were supporting mostly American citizens and SIV's who otherwise would have been stopped by the bureaucracy, frankly, by the State Department.”