Watch Ana Navarro shut down Rick Santorum over his shameful comments to a Latinx DREAMer

Former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum hasn’t held public office in nearly a decade, having been roundly thumped in every election since losing his senate seat in 2006. Nevertheless, there are those out there who evidently think Santorum—who once famously compared homosexuality to “man-on-dog” sex—has interesting and important things to say. And so, the man perhaps best known for his un-Google-able last name (try it!) found himself booked alongside Donald Trump nemesis and conservative pundit Ana Navarro for a televised town hall hosted by CNN’s Van Jones on Tuesday night.

There, Santorum came face to face with Elizabeth Vilchis, a mechanical engineer who came to the United States from Mexico with her family when she was a small child. Vilchis, who has stayed in America thanks, in part, to President Obama’s DACA program—which allows children who entered the U.S. with undocumented parents to work in American legally—shared her concerns about her legal status in this country given President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to scrap Obama’s executive order which protects her.

“I stand to lose all the work that I’ve done if the administration decides to end DACA,” Vilchis told Santorum, before asking him how he would advise her to plan for her uncertain future.

After a brief preamble about his father’s own immigration from Italy, Santorum sunk his teeth into Vilchis’ emotional request—and ended up choking on the answer.

“You have the ability to go to any other country right now and apply those wares, and be successful, and reapply to come back to America,” Santorum told her.

…Yeah, he basically said “get lost.” To her face.

On Twitter, the reaction was quick and merciless.

Navarro, seated alongside Santorum for the exchange, quickly jumped to Vilchis’ defense.

“First of all, this is your country,” Navarro declared. “No matter what he says, no matter what anybody else says, this is your country. And I, as an American, thank you for the contributions you are making to our joint country. I want you here.”

“That’s not what the law says,” Santorum muttered under Navarro’s comments, as she continued undeterred.

“You’ve got to tell your story, and change and affect public opinion,” she told Vilchis. “Because your stories are beautiful. They’re the stories of the American dream.”