Texas Congressional Candidate Says She Doesn’t Want Chinese Immigrants To Come To The U.S. ‘At All’: ‘I Can Say That Because I’m Korean’

A Texas congressional candidate is catching heat after saying she does not want Chinese immigrants in the United States.

According to Yahoo! News, a former employee of Donald Trump‘s administration and Texas congressional candidate Sery Kim faces backlash after she made racist remarks about the Chinese community coming into the U.S. The outlet reports Kim said she doesn’t want them coming to the U.S. “at all.” She claims they stole intellectual property and are the reason for the spread of the Coronavirus.

Kim’s words were said last week during a forum for candidates of Texas’ 6th Congressional District. “I don’t want them here at all,” she said. “They steal our intellectual property, they give us Coronavirus, they don’t hold themselves accountable.”

Kim said she feels comfortable making the racist statement because she’s of Asian descent. “And quite frankly, I can say that because I’m Korean.”

Kim used to work under Trump’s Small Business Administration. Before her words, she was endorsed by two Korean-American Republican Congresswomen who have since revoked their support of Kim. They called her statement “hurtful, untrue…[and] unacceptable.”

“As the first Korean American Republican women to serve in Congress, we want to empower and lift up fellow members of the (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community who want to serve their communities,” California Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel said in a statement. “We talked with Sery Kim yesterday about her hurtful and untrue comments about Chinese immigrants and made clear that her comments were unacceptable.”

On Friday, the Dallas Fort Worth Asian-American Citizens Council also spoke out against Kim’s remarks. “Racist and ethnic slurs, regardless of the source, have no place in today’s society,” the statement read. “Ms. Kim being of Korean descent does not give her license to use harmful language against Chinese or any other ethnic group.” The president of the group, Sammy Yang, said Kim’s comments “fuel the growing anti-Asian violence and further endanger Asian-Americans in our community. Her behavior is unacceptable and inexcusable.”