WASHINGTON — Sen. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania greeted President Trump’s first address to Congress with a guest whose presence made a political point about the Democrats’ plea for continued Medicaid funding to the states.

Casey reserved a seat in the House balcony Tuesday night for Joe McGrath, a former Marine whose daughter has Down syndrome and receives health care insurance under Obamacare, which Trump and Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace.

“I’m worried if there’s going to be funding to help her,” McGrath told reporters.

Casey has been leading the opposition fight to reducing federal funding to the 32 states who participated in the 2014 Medicare extension program that provides health insurance to an estimated 14 million low-income adults.

House Republican leaders have been working on a plan to phase out the extension as too costly, redefining who qualifies and providing tax credits instead of funds to the states. Plans would also allow the states to require able-bodied recipients to work in return for help in buying insurance.

Several other Democrats also invited guests to highlight their concerns over Trump’s plan to reduce spending on domestic programs to pay for the $54 billion price tag attached to his military buildup proposal.

Bringing guests to underscore a political agenda at presidential addresses is nothing new. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., brought retired coal miners to President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address last year to protest his environmental regulations.

Trump, according to the White House, invited a number of guests, including the widows of two California law enforcement officers, and the mother of a Los Angeles high school student killed by illegal immigrants.

But in a contentious political year, Democrats made an effort to stack the gallery overlooking Trump’s speech with those affected by anticipated policy changes to health care, immigration and other issues.

“I want the president to see that Americans come in every color and creed, and not everyone was born here,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who invited Dr. Ehsun Mizra, a Muslim Pakistani immigrant who works as an intensive care doctor in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Langevin and 11 other Democratic House members sponsored a variety of guests, including an Iranian graduate student in California, who was detained for 24 hours at Los Angeles International Airport and then made to pay her way back to Austria, where she had been visiting family.

Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colorado invited Oscar Juarez-Lune, a so-called “dreamer” immigrant, as his special guest. Juarez-Lune said his amnesty status as someone brought to the United States as a child is in jeopardy under Trump’s deportation plans.

“I want him to look up in the balcony and see all of us there,” said Juarez-Luna. “All the people affected by his policies.”

Tiba Faraj  an Iraqi refugee, attended Trump’s address to Congress as a guest of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Faraj is now an American citizen living in Lynn, Massachusetts, studying accounting and international relations at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. She said she wanted people to see what a refugee looks like, and how Trump’s travel ban has affected her family,

Faraj said her grandmother is still in Iraq and in poor health, and family members living in the U.S. are afraid to visit her because they worry they won’t be allowed back into the country.

“I go to school, I’ve done community service,” said Faraj. “I just want to be treated like everyone else.”

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey from Massachusetts invited Said Ahmed, who fled Somali for the U.S. when he was 12. He also became an American citizen, teaching public school students in Boston.

“The United States was built and continues to thrive because of refugees,” said Markey in a statement. “America offered Said a safe refuge from violence, and in return, he offered us his energy, his intelligence and his skills.”

Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, a Democrat up for re-election next year, invited Dr. Tim Kelly, an addiction counselor in Indianapolis, because he is on the “frontlines of Hoosiers trying to battle substance abuse.”

Donnelly said his purpose was not political but rather to highlight the need to fight the devastating opioid epidemic in his state and around the nation.

“I’m not looking for a (political) fight,” said Donnelly.  “I’m looking for help.”

Kery Murakami is the CNHI reporter in Washington. Contact him at kmurakami@cnhi.com