More than a dozen chief House lawmakers are invited to the meeting with Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. | Getty DHS chief huddles with lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly will meet with Senate and House lawmakers Tuesday afternoon after members on both sides of the aisle expressed concerns and outrage about President Trump’s refugee ban, which unleashed chaos at airports and mass confusion on Capitol Hill over the weekend.

Several key senators and House lawmakers are invited to the meeting, according to multiple sources. Invitees include House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and several other lawmakers who lead committees with ties to the refugee ban.


Ryan has chatted with Kelly privately and will not attend today's meeting, his spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in an email Tuesday morning.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Intel ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas), Homeland ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss), Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Judiciary ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.), Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), and Appropriations ranking member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) are also invited.

Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), John Carter (R-Texas), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), Filemon Vela (D-Texas), Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) are all also on the list, according to a Democratic aide.

The confab comes after House Democrats fired off a letter to Kelly late Sunday night, demanding an “emergency” meeting with the new DHS chief following a weekend of protests and pushback to Trump’s executive order. Republicans haven't been as harsh in their criticism Trump's controversial order, although several GOP members have said it needs to be retooled and that they were kept in the dark about the president's plan until it was signed Friday afternoon.

Lofgren introduced legislation Monday to rescind Trump’s executive order, which temporarily bans all refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The Lofgren bill is unlikely to go anywhere given Ryan’s support of Trump’s order. But the meeting with Kelly could help put to rest some of confusion surrounding the ban, which has been roundly criticized by Democrats and tepidly embraced by most Republicans.

In the Sunday letter to Kelly, Democrats expressed significant concerns about “widespread chaos and confusion” over which travelers were being detained as the landed in the U.S. and whether customs agents were blocking detainees from legal aid, even after a federal judge ordered them not to do so.

House and Senate Democrats rallied at the foot of the Supreme Court Monday night, braving freezing temperatures to huddle with more than a thousand demonstrators denouncing Trump’s plan.

Earlier in the evening, Senate Republicans rejected Democratic attempts to force a vote on a bill to rescind Trump’s order.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report