House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi—and a number of her Democratic colleagues—plan to bring illegal immigrants as their guests to President Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.
According to a report by ABC News, at least 24 House Democrats will bring “Dreamers”—illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and were beneficiaries of Obama’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—to the House of Representatives chamber, to watch the speech in the House gallery.
Additionally, six other Democrats plan to bring other people affected by immigration policy as their guests, including people who have had a family member deported.
The news comes barely a week after Democrats in the U.S. Senate shut down the federal government in order to force the continuation of DACA, which will end in March.
While a majority of Americans support extending DACA, large numbers of Americans harshly criticized the Democrats for putting illegal immigrants before U.S. citizens. During the shutdown, a plurality of Americans blamed Democrats—with large majorities stating they’d rather Democrats fund the federal government than fight for illegal immigrants.
As a result, the Democrats abandoned their push and funded the government through the middle of February, without gaining any meaningful concessions from Republicans on immigration reform.
