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Here are all the protest statements Congress plans to make during SOTU

23 lawmakers plan to bring DACA recipients as their plus-ones to make a statement on immigration
Leslie Xia

Legislators attending the president’s State of the Union address have traditionally expressed their opinions in two ways: applaud or don’t applaud.

But Tuesday night, lawmakers are planning to make political statements about immigration and sexual harassment using two other tools: guests and dress.

To show they favor permanent protections for young immigrants, at least 23 lawmakers will bring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients as plus-ones to Tuesday’s State of the Union, including Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who together with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sponsored a bipartisan DACA bill that spurred Trump’s comments about “shithole countries” earlier this month, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the House minority leader, and Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL).

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President Trump’s first State of the Union comes as Congress has been in tumultuous immigration negotiations for weeks over what to do about hundreds of thousands of immigrants currently protected by the Obama-era DACA program that Trump will officially end on March 5. A standoff over immigration led to a government shutdown earlier this month, and as the next budget deadline of Feb. 8 quickly approaches, lawmakers still have not reached a compromise.

Read more: Good Trump or bad Trump: which will show up to the State of the Union?

Lawmakers plan to highlight other aspects of the immigration debate, like increased immigration arrests and deportations of non-criminals, with guests. Cindy Garcia, the wife of Jorge Garcia, a Detroit father who was deported to Mexico after working in the U.S. for 30 years, will attend with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI). Sunayana Dumala, the widow of an Indian immigrant killed in a bar shooting that prosecutors are calling a hate crime, who temporarily lost legal residency, will attend with Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS).

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) will make an opposing immigration point with his guest Tommy Fisher, the head of one of six companies that received a government contract to fulfill Trump’s most popular campaign promise: build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump will use some of his 15 guests to make political statements of his own, including an ICE agent and parents of two teenage girls killed by alleged MS-13 gang members in Long Island last year.

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Read more: Here are all the lawmakers boycotting Trump's State of the Union

At least nine lawmakers will bring sexual assault survivors and women’s rights advocates as guests. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), who has sponsored legislation to overhaul how Congress handles sexual harassment allegations, will being Fatima Goss Graves, the president of the National Women's Law Center. Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) will bring Danielle McGuire, a historian of Recy Taylor, the sexual assault survivor championed by Oprah Winfrey in her fiery Golden Globes speech earlier this month.

In #MeToo and #TimesUp fashion, Democratic women will be wearing black in solidarity with the women’s rights movement that has taken off since Trump’s inauguration just over a year ago.

Read more: It loooks likee nooone porfread the Stat of the Uniom ticketts

Bill Nye the science guy will also make an appearance with Rep. Jim Bridenstine R-OK, an odd pair since Bridenstine only recently came around to the idea that humans are causing climate change when he was nominated to head NASA last year. San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayor Yulin Cruz will also be in the audience as a guest of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Trump picked a fight with Cruz after she criticized his response to Hurricane Maria on the island last summer.

At least nine Democratic lawmakers are skipping Trump’s speech all together, including Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) who criticized the president last year for his treatment of a military widow, and Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon Trump berated on Twitter after he questioned the legitimacy of his presidency due to Russian intervention in the 2016 election.