Republican Rep. John Katko in a letter released Monday called for the U.S. to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, pointing to China's human rights violations and the persecution of ethnic minorities. 

“Recent actions taken by the Chinese Communist Party are antithetical to the values of both the United States and its allies around the world," Katko wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden. "Participation in an Olympics held in a country that is a actively committing genocide not only undermines those shared values, but casts a shadow on the promise for all those who seek free and just societies.”

The United States has not boycotted since the 1980 summer games held in Moscow in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. 

In the letter to Biden, Katko noted China's relocation and internment of ethnic groups like the Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and ethnic Kyrgyz.

"Mr. President, the evidence is clear - the CCP is deliberately and systematically working to eliminate an entire population within its own borders," Katko wrote in the letter. "In doing so, it expects the rest of the world to be silent and, in the case of business operations and global supply chains, complicit in these actions."

Katko last year was named the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee.