Democrat invites detained immigrant rights activist’s wife to Trump State of the Union address

Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) has invited the wife of detained immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir to President Trump’s first State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. 

Amy Gottlieb said she will “go proudly … to what I’m sure will be a fascinating experience at the State of the Union address,” according to The Associated Press.

Ragbir was arrested during a routine check-in meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York earlier this month. {mosads}

Eighteen people were arrested, including two New York City council members, at a demonstration outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building after Ragbir was detained. 

Velázquez and Gottlieb, who is an immigrant rights lawyer, also rallied outside of the ICE offices in New York on Saturday, along with Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.), Joseph Crowley (N.Y.) and Yvette Clarke (N.Y.).

The State of the Union comes as Congress works with the White House to reach a deal to protect recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Trump said last September that he would end the Obama-era program, but gave Congress time to come up with a solution for recipients of the program, immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. 

Congress has been at an impasse over how to protect DACA recipients, who are often called “Dreamers.”

The disagreement boiled over earlier this month when Republicans and Democrats were unable to compromise on a bill to fund the government, resulting in a government shutdown. 

In a one-page immigration framework released last week, Trump calls for granting a pathway to citizenship for nearly 2 million Dreamers in exchange for tens of billions of dollars for his border wall and other policies that would dramatically restrict legal immigration.