Sunayana Dumala, the widow of Indian techie Srinivas Kuchibhotla who was killed in a hate crime in 2017 in Kansas, was a Congressional guest at the State of the Union address delivered by President Donald Trump in January 2018. Dumala called the speech “welcoming and positive” on reforming immigration. “In the very beginning he (Trump) said that we all have our differences but we have to work in unity and harmony,” she told the Kansas City TV station, KHSB. “That is welcome.”

“And he did address immigration and that there is a need to fix a broken system,” she added. “That is very positive too.”

Republican Representative Kevin Yoder tweeted that he invited her to the President’s ceremonial speech “in recognition for her tireless efforts to promote peace and as a message to the Indian community that the US is a nation of immigrants and they are welcome here.” Dumala is at risk of being sent out of the US because she came in as a dependent on her husband’s H1-B temporary professional visa but the deportation has been stayed.

Before attending Trump’s address, Dumala met House Speaker Paul Ryan and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the chair of the House Republican Conference, and other lawmakers, according to KHSB’s Twitter feed from Washington.