As he told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott he would, disgraced former Republican Rep. George Santos arrived to the House chamber on Thursday night about an hour before Biden's speech begins.

He was seen seated on the GOP side near the aisle -- his normal position when he was a voting lawmaker.

As a former member, Santos retains the privilege of accessing the House floor. He would need to be convicted of one of his criminal charges to be banned from the floor. He has pleaded not guilty.

-ABC News' John Parkinson

Republicans plan to keep an empty seat in memoriam of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed on the University of Georgia's Athens campus last month.

Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., said he invited Riley's parents to be guests at the State of the Union though "they have chosen to stay home as they grieve the loss of their daughter."

Biden's address comes hours after the House passed the Laken Riley Act, which would require detention of any unauthorized migrant who commits burglary or theft.

The suspect charged in Riley's killing, Jose Antonio Ibarra, unlawfully entered the U.S. near El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was paroled and released for further processing, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said following his arrest in Georgia.

ICE said that Ibarra was subsequently arrested by New York City police in 2023 and released before federal officials could ask for his detention. The NYPD has said there is no arrest on file.

The Laken Riley Act passed the House 251-170, with 37 Democrats voting for it. Some opposing it believe Republicans are using Riley's death for their own political gain to place blame on the Biden administration's border policies as polling shows immigration is a top issue for some voters.

I’m especially interested in what the president has to say about abortion rights. It has been a winning issue for Democrats, and a losing one for Republicans, since the Supreme Court upended the status quo and reversed Roe v. Wade's protections in June 2022. In fact, polling shows that Americans have become even more supportive of abortion rights since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was issued.

Democrats will be eager to campaign on expanding and protecting reproductive health this fall, and their voters rank the issue highly, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

In that same poll, 55% of voters said they want to see the federal government protect abortion access across the country, and one in eight voters said it was the most important factor determining their vote.

On the opposite side, many anti-abortion groups want their candidates to support a national ban, something that’s very unpopular with the public as a whole.

-Monica Potts, 538

House Speaker Mike Johnson invited two Gold Star parents, Alicia Lopez and Darin Hoover, who both lost children in the Kabul airport bombing during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, to attend Biden's State of the Union.

Cpl. Hunter Lopez and Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover were among the 13 service members killed and numerous others injured at Abbey Gate.

"President Biden's hasty, unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan was a failure for America and its allies. It led to the tragic deaths," Johnson contended in a statement to ABC News, in part, ahead of the address. Biden has defended the decision to end the decadeslong war.