Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., is seen during votes at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024.
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Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama is under fire for using the experiences of an early 2000s sex trafficking victim to condemn President Joe Biden’s current border policies.
In her rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union on Thursday, Britt referenced a visit to the Del Rio section of the Texas border, where she had a seemingly private conversation with someone who had survived sex trafficking by groups in the United States
“There I spoke to a woman who told me her story,” Britt said in the video. “She has been a victim of sex trafficking by the cartels since she was 12 years old.”
The woman in question was later revealed to be Karla Jacinto Romero, an activist who has testified publicly about her experiences with sex trafficking that took place in Guadalajara and other Mexican cities from 2004 to 2008.
Britt apparently tried to portray the anecdote as a damning example of Biden’s border management.
“We would not agree if something like this happened in a third world country,” she added. “President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace. This crisis is despicable.”
But Jacinto Romero did not experience sex trafficking in the U.S. because of Biden’s border policies – because he was not president from 2004 to 2008 and because she was a victim of sex trafficking in Mexico.
Britt’s claim that Jacinto Romero disclosed her experiences privately is not supported by publicly available information.
Britt visited the Del Rio area in January 2023 on a joint trip with Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss. During that trip, Jacinto Romero appeared at a press conference with Britt, Blackburn, and Hyde-Smith, where she publicly shared her grueling story of sex trafficking.
Jacinto Romero advocates for victims of sex trafficking and has repeatedly told her story in testimony before the U.S. Congress, the Mexican House of Representatives and the Vatican, according to a brief 2015 profile in a U.S. House of Representatives document.
Journalist Jonathan Katz first compiled Britt’s account of Jacinto Romero’s experiences in a TikTok video on Friday.
Since the anecdote was exposed as misplaced, Britt has faced a barrage of online criticism, adding to previous disapproval over the delivery of her rebuttal.
“So Katie Britt wasn’t just a complete embarrassment. She’s also an out-and-out liar. Alabama’s best!” wrote political scientist Norman Ornstein in an X article.
Ornstein is part of a broader chorus of journalists and writers condemning Britt for her storytelling.
“That was old Alabama politics. The politics of fear and confusion,” wrote Alabama columnist Kyle Whitmire on X. “Britt blamed Biden for an attack that apparently occurred 20 years ago. Your spokesperson will not give a clear answer when asked.”
Sean Ross, spokesman for Senator Britt, did not dispute that Jacinto Romero is the sex trafficking survivor in question, but he did double down on Britt’s story.
“The story Senator Britt told was 100% accurate,” Ross said in a statement to CNBC. “But there are now more innocent victims of this despicable, brutal human trafficking by the cartels than ever before.”
Although sex trafficking has occurred in the United States under the Biden administration, Jacinto Romero’s sex trafficking story is not an example of it.
“Today, Karla is a happy and successful mother of two beautiful girls, a wife, a student and an international activist,” the 2015 House document states.
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2024-03-09 18:26:48
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