President Trump and members of the House and Senate will partake on Tuesday in a long tradition of using guests to highlight their views and causes at the president’s State of the Union address.
The White House has not announced all of Mr. Trump’s guests, and Mr. Trump has previously held back details about his invitees so that he could reveal them during the speech itself. So far, the president has invited Erika Kirk — the widow of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk — as well as the gold-medal-winning U.S. men’s and women’s hockey teams, to attend the speech. Lawmakers have invited victims of Jeffrey Epstein and people affected by the president’s immigration enforcement campaign.
Mr. Trump invited the men’s hockey team to the White House and his speech during a locker-room call after their victory. During the call, Mr. Trump joked that he would also have to invite the women’s team or be “impeached.” The women’s team declined his invitation, citing scheduling conflicts, but a group of men’s players visited Mr. Trump at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.
Some lawmakers have announced who they’ll be bringing with them for the address. Here are some of those notable guests:
Victims of Immigration Enforcement
Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, invited four guests who have been impacted by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis: Aliya Rahman, a U.S. citizen who was dragged from her car after an ICE agent shattered her car’s window who drew attention because of a widely shared video; Mary Granlund, the chair of the Columbia Heights School Board, where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos had attended school before he was detained by ICE agents; Mubashir Hussen, a U.S. citizen who was arrested by ICE agents after informing them that he was a citizen; and Gerardo Orozco Guzman, the son of a labor organizer who was arrested by ICE and taken to a detention center in New Mexico.
Representative Jesús García, Democrat of Illinois, has invited Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman who was shot five times by Charles Exum, a Border Patrol agent. The federal government had been pursuing a criminal case against Ms. Martinez, accusing her of using her car to assault federal agents and interfere with their work enforcing immigration laws. Prosecutors dropped the charges after her lawyers raised concerns about the preservation of evidence. Text messages released this month showed that Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official, praised Mr. Exum after the shooting.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, invited Raiza Contreras, the mother of Dylan Lopez Contreras, a now 21-year-old Venezuelan man who became the first New York City public school student to be detained by ICE in May. Ms. Contreras has been waging a monthslong battle for her son’s release after he was detained at an immigration courthouse last year. His family said he had legally entered the country in 2024 under a Biden-era program, and was enrolled at a Bronx high school that caters to young migrants learning English.
Republican lawmakers have invited their own guests to make their own point on immigration: Representative Pete Stauber, Republican of Minnesota, invited the YouTubers Nick Shirley and David Hoch, whose video showing them knocking on the doors of registered day cares and autism centers in Minneapolis went viral as they accused the Somali-run care centers of fraud. The video brought widespread attention to fraud in Minnesota’s generous social services systems but The New York Times, which has been reporting on the fraud cases for years, could not verify the specific claims made in the video.
Claire Lai, Daughter of Jimmy Lai
Speaker Mike Johnson invited Claire Lai, the daughter of an imprisoned Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul, to the speech. Ms. Lai’s father, Jimmy Lai, was accused by Beijing of masterminding the city’s antigovernment protests nearly seven years ago. Mr. Lai, 78, was sentenced this month to 20 years in prison, the heaviest penalty ever handed down for a national security offense in Hong Kong.
Epstein Survivors
More than a dozen lawmakers have invited survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, as well as family members, to draw attention to the release of investigative files related to Mr. Epstein and his sex-trafficking ring, as well as Mr. Trump’s ties to the disgraced financier.
Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, will attend the State of the Union, along with his wife, Amanda. Ms. Giuffre, who said she had been trafficked to rich and powerful men, died by suicide last year. The two family members were invited as guests of Democratic Representatives Suhas Subramanyam and Jamie Raskin.
Representative Robert Garcia, Democrat of California, invited Annie Farmer, who has testified in court about how she was groomed and abused as a teenager by Mr. Epstein and his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, invited Marina Lacerda, who said that she met Mr. Epstein when she was 14. Mr. Schumer, the minority leader, is bringing Danielle Bensky, a survivor who said she met Mr. Epstein when she was 17.
Representative James R. Walkinshaw, Democrat of Virginia, invited Jess Michaels, who has said that Mr. Epstein sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago. Haley Robson, another Epstein survivor who had recruited other teenage girls to visit Mr. Epstein’s South Florida mansion, was invited by Representative Ro Khanna.
Other Democratic lawmakers are boycotting the speech and have invited Epstein survivors to attend in their place. Marijke Chartouni, who has said she was sexually abused by Mr. Epstein when she was 20 years old, will attend as a guest of Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington. Jena-Lisa Jones, another victim, will attend in place of Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California.
American and Canadian Astronauts
Four astronauts scheduled for a trip around the moon will attend the State of the Union as guests of Speaker Johnson. NASA had hoped to target March 6 as the launch date for Artemis II — the first manned mission and the first mission to send astronauts around the Moon’s orbit since the end of NASA’s Apollo program more than 50 years ago — but a system malfunction forced the space agency to delay until at least April 1. Louisiana, the state Mr. Johnson represents, is home to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, where the core stage of the Artemis II rocket was built.
The family of Jesse Jackson
Mr. Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, also invited family members of the civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, who received bipartisan praise, even from Mr. Trump, for his legacy after his death last week. Mr. Jeffries did not identify which family members would attend.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Erica L. Green and Kenneth Chang contributed reporting.
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
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