Two Korean American House lawmakers pulled their endorsements of a fellow Republican running for Congress after she made “hurtful” comments about Chinese immigrants.
Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel, Californians who are also the first two Korean American Republicans to serve in Congress, issued a joint statement on Friday announcing their reversal regarding Sery Kim.
“As the first Korean American Republican women to serve in Congress, we want to empower and lift up fellow members of the AAPI [Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders] community who want to serve their communities,” they said. “We talked with Sery Kim yesterday about her hurtful and untrue comments about Chinese immigrants and made clear that her comments were unacceptable.”
FORMER TRUMP OFFICIAL RUNNING FOR CONGRESS ATTACKS CHINA AND CHINESE IMMIGRANTS
Young Kim and Steel said they tried to get Sery Kim to apologize, but she refused. “We cannot in good conscience continue to support her candidacy,” they said.
Sery Kim, a candidate for Texas’s 6th Congressional District who previously worked in the Trump administration, said last week that she didn’t want to allow any Chinese immigrants to enter the United States.
“I don’t want [Chinese immigrants] here at all,” she said during a Republican congressional candidate forum on Wednesday. “They steal our intellectual property, they give us coronavirus, [and] they don’t hold themselves accountable.”
“And quite frankly, I can say that because I’m Korean,” Kim added.
The comments attracted widespread backlash as hate crimes against Asian Americans spiked 150% throughout 2020, which coincides with the coronavirus pandemic. The first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, leading some high-profile people, including former President Donald Trump, to call it the “China virus.”
Kim, who is a first-generation immigrant from South Korea, is 1 of 11 candidates running for the Republican nomination ahead of the May 1 special election to replace the late Ron Wright, who died in February.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Young Kim and Steel, both of whom were born in South Korea, won their first congressional terms in 2020, defeating Democratic incumbents to become the first-ever Korean American Republicans to serve in Congress.
