IRVINE – About 120 people packed the University Hills community center to voice their opposition to President Donald Trump and his policies Wednesday night.

But what was clearly missing from the town hall meeting was their invited guest: Rep. Mimi Walters. Organizer Deborah Newquist said one of the purposes of the meeting was to ask the Republican congresswoman where she stood on various issues and what she thought about Trump’s policies.

“People are getting upset that she’s not making herself available,” Newquist said.

Abigail Sigler, Walters’ spokeswoman, said the congresswoman is in Orange County this week to have private meetings with her constituents, though there’s no plan for a town hall meeting.

“She firmly believes that meeting and listening to her constituents is the best way to represent them and advocate for them in Washington,” Sigler stated in an emailed statement. “She will not allow a small, vocal group of paid activists distract her from this fundamental responsibility. As she always has, she welcomes anyone with comments or concerns to contact her office.”

Newquist, a 66-year-old gerontologist who used to run an elder care consulting firm, said she wasn’t paid to organize the meeting. She decided to host the event after being alarmed by Trump’s presidency and encouraged by her son, Newquist said.

She invited her fellow residents in University Hills, a housing development for UC Irvine employees, and people she met through participating in the Women’s March on Washington in January, Newquist said.

In front of the gathered crowed, Newquist took straw polls on issues such as health care, Planned Parenthood and gun control. They were all unanimous in their liberal votes.

Then they discussed how to convince Walters to change her positions and possibly remove her and rallying other voters in her district, which extends from Anaheim Hills to Rancho Santa Margarita and includes Irvine.

Orange County has become a key battleground of a national resistance movement against the Trump administration. Dozens of grassroots activists are parading to GOP congressional offices each week demanding town hall meetings to address their Congress members.

So far, none of the four — Walters, Reps. Ed Royce, Dana Rohrabacher and Darrell Issa — has consented to a town hall. All four were reelected in November, but their districts all favored Hillary Clinton for president.