Chuck Park, the former U.S. diplomat who ran an anti-ICE campaign to unseat Rep. Grace Meng in Queens, once recounted hoping that a deported 13-year-old he had personally denied a visa would find “the best smuggler they could afford” to get back into the United States.

The comments, made at a 2020 Columbia University seminar series, were first reported by the New York Post on June 8, during Park’s primary challenge against Meng in New York’s 6th Congressional District. Park, who worked as a diplomat before resigning to become an immigration activist, was asked at the seminar about his time on the job.

He described a teenager he said he interviewed early in his first posting. “In June 2012, about a little over a year into my first tour, I interviewed one aspiring immigrant. His name was Brayan Rio. He was 13 years old, and he was a dreamer. He was born in Mexico,” Park said, per the Post. He said Rio had first lied about his immigration status at age 5.