WASHINGTON -- Esder Chong of Highland Park, brought to the U.S. at age 6 from South Korea, is a student at Rutgers Newark and has plans of becoming a lawyer.

She also is an unauthorized immigrant, one of the so-called dreamers facing deportation if Congress can't agree on legislation allowing them to stay now that President Donald Trump has revoked their protection from deportation.

"We are virtually Americans in every way except on paper," said Chong, a member of Rutgers' track and field team when she is not studying finance and philosophy. "I'm not sure how to describe an American if I'm not part of that definition."

On Tuesday, Chong, now 19, will be in the House gallery at President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, She was invited by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. to help highlight the dilemma faced by an estimated 690,000 young people brought to the U.S. as children.

"She is exactly the type of young person we should be encouraging and supporting, not deporting," said Pallone, D-6th Dist. "New Jersey is Esder's home and she shouldn't live in fear because of partisanship and procrastination in Congress."

Trump in September ended President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and gave Congress until March 5 to pass legislation allowing those brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the country, including an estimated 17,400 from New Jersey, ninth highest among the 50 states.

They are known as dreamers after the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act that would have allowed them to remain in the country legally if they attended college or joined the military. Senate Republicans blocked that legislation.

Several other dreamers from New Jersey have come to Washington to lobby for passage of legislation allowing to stay, including Daniella Vieira of Somerset, a financial analyst who emigrated to the U.S. from Brazil at 11 years old.

We cannot allow a dedicated #AmericanDreamer like Daniella to get swept up in Trump’s deportation force. The U.S. is the only country she knows, and she contributes every day at home, in her community, and at NJ’s @JNJnews. We must protect her. We must pass the #DreamActNow pic.twitter.com/nmVUBDSFOl — Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) January 10, 2018

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Donald Payne Jr. D-10th Dist., also have invited dreamers to highlight the legislative fight over immigration.

Booker is bringing Elizabeth Vilchis, 29, of Ridgefield, who holds a degree in mechanical engineering from City College of New York and runs a nonprofit called LatinoTech, which seeks to provide funding for startups by Latino entrepreneurs.

"To paint us as things that don't deserve to be treated as human beings in order to have us ripped away from our communities, the only communities we have ever known, is the most un-American thing that can happen - and if it can happen to dreamers, what other groups of people in America will be next?" Vilchis said.

Booker said he hoped Trump will "see the faces of Liz and others like her, and think about these Americans as their fate is debated in the weeks ahead."

Payne's guest, Science Park High School senior Juan Lopez, 17, of Newark, will attend Rutgers-Newark to study engineering. Lopez, who came to the U.S. at age 2 from Uruguay, is in the Rutgers Future Scholars Program, which prepares first-generation, low-income students for college.

"Dreamers like Juan Lopez represent the bright future of our nation," Payne said.

Trump said on Monday that he hoped to resolve the issue.

"For many, many years they've been talking immigration, they never got anything done, we're going to get something done, we hope," Trump said, according to White House pool reports.

With her Asian ancestry, Chong said she offers a different picture of dreamers.

"I do not embody the typical image of an undocumented face," she said. "This undocumented issue is not just a Latino or Mexican issue that many people think it is. It's an American issue that affects diverse communities."

Two other New Jersey lawmakers, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-12th Dist., and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., will use the State of the Union address to call attention to the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment. Both will be dressed in black.

Menendez is inviting Patricia Teffenhart, executive director of the NJ Coalition Against Sexual Assault, as his guest. Teffenhart also will wear black.

"In recent months, the #MeToo movement has encouraged women across the country to stand up, speak out and proclaim that 'enough is enough,'" Menendez said.

Watson Coleman's guest will be Rose Gunter, the niece of Recy Taylor, who was 24 when she was raped by six white men in 1944 as she walked home from church. The incident was an early catalyst of the civil rights movement.

All-white grand juries refused to indict the men, even though one had confessed. and was her caregiver until her death last year. The Alabama Legislature apologized to her in 2011.

Oprah Winfrey mentioned Taylor in her Golden Globes speech that led to calls for the entertainer to run for president.

Gunter cared for Taylor before her death last year. Watson Coleman will wear a red "Recy" pin.

Rep. Donald Norcross, D-1st Dist., is bringing Analilia Mejia, executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance. Norcross has been looking at ways to increase the ability of workers to bargain for higher pay and benefits.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer's guest, Jimmy Drake of New Milford, lost his son Darren to a lone-wolf terrorist in October who drove his truck onto a New York City bike path, killing eight people in all. Sayfullo Saipov, a Uzbekistan native and Paterson resident, was charged in the attack.

Other guests will be more mundane. Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th Dist., will bring his wife, Marie; and Rep. Leonard Lance, R-7th Dist., has invited state Sen. Michael Doherty, R-Warren.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.