Only black Republican congressman announces he is standing down, calling Trump ‘racist and xenophobic’

The only black Republican in the House of Representatives has announced that he is quitting politics, after calling Donald Trump “racist and xenophobic.”

Will Hurd, who represents Texas’s 23^rd Congressional district announced he will not seek re-election in 2020, in a statement posted on his congressional website.

He wrote: “Serving people of all walks of life has shown me that way more unites our country than divides us.”

As the only African American Republican in the House of Representatives and as a congressman who represents a 71 per cent Latino district, I’ve taken a conservative message to places that don’t often hear it.

Speaking to CNN last month, he accused the president of racism over his “Go back home” comments aimed at four congresswomen of colour; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

“I think those tweets are racist and xenophobic. They’re also inaccurate,” he said.

Look, I’m the only black Republican in the House of Representatives. I go into communities that most Republicans don’t show up in order to take a conservative message.

This makes it harder in order to take our ideas, and our platform, to communities that don’t necessarily identify with the Republican Party.

Hurd concluded:

Two centuries ago, I would have been counted as three-fifths of a person, and today I can say I’ve had the honour of serving three terms in Congress. America has come a long way and we still have more to do in our pursuit of a more perfect union. However, this pursuit will stall if we don’t all do our part. When I took the oath of office after joining the CIA, I swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all its enemies.

I took the same oath on my first day in Congress. This oath doesn’t have a statute of limitations. I will keep fighting to ensure the country I love excels during what will be a time of unprecedented technological change. I will keep fighting to make certain we successfully meet these generational challenges head on. I will keep fighting to remind people why I love America: that we are neither Republican nor Democrat nor Independent; We are better than the sum of our parts.

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