GOP lawmakers pull support of candidate following comments about Chinese immigrants

California Reps. Young Kim (R) and Michelle Steel (R) revoked their endorsements of Texas congressional candidate Sery Kim (R) after she said she doesn’t want Chinese immigrants “here at all.”

In a statement released Friday and shared with The Hill on Saturday, the lawmakers said they “cannot in good conscience” continue to support Sery Kim, who is running to represent Texas’s 6th Congressional District.

The GOP congresswomen previously endorsed Sery Kim, who is Korean American, in early March.

“As the first Korean American Republican women to serve in Congress, we want to empower and lift up fellow members of the AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Island] community who want to serve their communities,” the lawmakers wrote. 

The lawmakers said they urged Sery Kim to apologize but noted that her words “were contrary to what we stand for.”

“We will continue to speak out in support of our AAPI community,” they added.

The statement comes after Sery Kim attacked China and Chinese immigrants during a GOP candidate forum on Wednesday, according to The Dallas Morning News.

“I don’t want them here at all,” Sery Kim said. “They steal our intellectual property. They give us coronavirus. They don’t hold themselves accountable.”

After the audience applauded her remarks, Sery Kim followed by saying, “Quite frankly, I can say that because I’m Korean.”

The comments came amid a spike in anti-Asian violence across America this past year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The coronavirus is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China. 

The issue of anti-Asian hate came to a fever pitch last month when a shooting spree at several Atlanta-area spas in left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent.

Sery Kim confirmed to CNN that she made the remarks but said they were directed at the Communist Party of China and not at all Asian Americans.

In response to the revoked endorsements, Sery Kim told CNN that she is “shocked that in an effort to counter Asian-American hate the liberal media is targeting me, an Asian and an immigrant, in an effort to paint me as anti-Asian and anti-immigrant just for speaking against the oppressive Chinese Communist Party.”

Sery Kim, who worked in the Small Business Administration during former President Trump’s administration, is running to replace the late Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas), who died of COVID-19 earlier this year.