A U.S. Army veteran who was fired from a veterans hospital, the leader of Illinois Head Start and a special education teacher were among the guests invited by Illinois Democrats to President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress Tuesday.
While the White House on Monday named their special guests, including Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray — both killed by men lacking legal status, Democrats tried to give a voice to those who have been harmed by Trump’s policies.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., brought Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, executive director of the Illinois Head Start Association, whom she called “on the frontlines of Trump’s needless and lawless chaos.”
“You see, despite running on the promise that Trump would lower costs for middle class Americans, his illegal funding freeze is hurting the same families he swore he’d protect,” Duckworth said.
The state’s early education programs Head Start and Early Head Start could not access federal funding for several days last month — which led to programs being shut down temporarily, and also layoffs, she said. Federal staffers were also terminated last week.
“The impact is still being felt today,” Morrison-Frichtl said. ”Because of the chaos that was created, there’s a lot of anxiety and uncertainties that are rippling across our communities.”
Adam Mulvey, an Army veteran who served for 20 years and retired in 2019, was fired as an emergency management specialist at Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago last month via a late night email. Mulvey is a guest of Rep. Brad Schneider — one of about 6,000 veterans who were fired last month by DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire Elon Musk.
Mulvey was among the probationary employees Musk is targeting — but he said his termination letter blames performance, which he called a “flat out lie” that can be proven by his evaluations and the performance bonuses he has received.
“I was quite shocked. It was definitely unexpected. Those of us who have been working in the VA, we knew that there were government layoffs and possible shutdown coming, but the mission of the VA is so important, and the level of care we provide to the veterans — sometimes their only care — is so important,” Mulvey said.
Far west suburban U.S. Rep. Bill Foster invited Joe Jackson, the executive director of Hesed House, Illinois’ second-largest homeless shelter.
Jackson got the call asking him to join the congressman in D.C. after a Valentine’s Day zoning meeting advancing his organization’s latest affordable supportive housing project in Aurora.
“My first response was, ‘Are you sure?’” Jackson said with a laugh. “I’m honored to be representing our staff and our guests, who tend to be overlooked at various levels of government.”
In addition to private grants and donations, the nonprofit organization relies heavily on federal grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that have been thrown into limbo amid sweeping spending cuts by the Trump administration.
“It’s brought a lot of uncertainty because we don’t know what’s going to happen with different pots of funding. It makes planning difficult,” Jackson said.
Newly implemented tariffs will raise construction costs for Hesed House to renovate a vacant Aurora school into 20 units of affordable housing, Jackson said, while potential Medicaid cuts could be devastating for Hesed House guests who “rely on it tremendously.”
Foster called Jackson’s leadership “crucial, especially as the Trump Administration and Elon Musk attempt to unlawfully withhold funding from community organizations and slash federal programs that Illinoisans rely on.”
Downstate U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski brought Belleville special education teacher Lisa Quandt, who argues Trump administration education policies — including gutting the U.S. Department of Education and promoting charter and private school voucher programs — “would leave our kids behind in a huge way.”
“We’re very concerned about what they’re trying to put into place. It undermines everything about our funding and accessibility for the kids who need it most,” said Quandt.
“Our goal is to make all young people productive citizens, and some of them need accommodations to do that,” Quandt said. “It makes me physically ill to think about the changes that could be coming, but I can’t stop fighting.”
Budzinski said she wants Quandt’s attendance to remind Trump “of the real people who are suffering because of his actions.”
U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García brought West Lawn U.S. Army Veteran Eric Rodriguez, an employee at Hines VA Hospital. Rep. Jonathan Jackson invited Chicago State University Provost Sonja Feist-Price, and suburban Rep. Robin Kelly invited Dr. Lisa Green of the Family Christian Health Center.
Reps. Mike Quigley, Jan Schakowsky and Sean Casten skipped the Capitol spectacle altogether, with Casten saying his attendance would “imply I have respect for Donald Trump, Speaker Johnson, or the rest of Trump’s enablers.”