WASHINGTON — Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) has come under fire in recent days for allegedly misrepresenting the stories of sex trafficking victims in her Republican response to last week's State of the Union.
An NBC News review of her comments from last year shows it's an anecdote she has often used to criticize the Biden administration's border policies, but the victims she was referring to were from nearly two decades ago. He had been trafficked to Mexico.
In a response to the State of the Union, the freshman senator spoke about her 2023 U.S.-Mexico border visit and told graphic stories of rape and sex trafficking to criticize President Joe Biden's border policies .
“When I first took office, I did something different. I traveled to the Del Rio area of Texas and spoke to a woman there who told me her story. She was a 12-year-old. At times, she was sex trafficked by cartels. She told me not that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped,” Britt said in a speech Thursday.
“When something like this happens in a third world country, we cannot tolerate it. This is the United States of America, and I think it's past time for us to start acting like that.” she added.
It was later reported by an independent journalist that the woman featured in Britt's speech was Carla Jacinto Romero, who had been trafficked to Mexico rather than the United States during the time Republican George W. Bush was president. . Jacinto Romero testified before Congress in 2015, and she told lawmakers that she was trafficked by a pimp, not a Mexican drug cartel, as Britt suggested.
NBC News reports that prior to his State of the Union response, the young Alabama senator had mentioned Jacinto Romero's story at least five times in press conferences and cable news interviews last year and criticized the Biden administration on border policy. revealed that it was. Alleges Jacinto Romero's human trafficking and rape occurred under the Biden administration.
“As a mother, I sat across from a young woman and told her that she wasn't raped every day, but multiple times a day at the hands of drug cartels,” Britt said at a news conference. Conference regarding the Biden administration's lifting of Title 42 immigration policies on May 11, 2023.
“When I talked to young women, it wasn't that they were raped every day, it was how many times a day they were raped,” Britt said at a press conference on border trafficking on July 20, 2023. It was a problem,” he said. .
At another press conference on Biden's “Border Catastrophe” on September 20, 2023, Britt again referred to Jacinto Romero's account of rape.
“I spoke to women who told me not only that they had been raped, but also how many times a day they were raped at the hands of drug cartels,” she said.
Although Britt never mentioned Jacinto Romero by name in her multiple references to her story, a spokesperson for Britt's office told the Washington Post that he mentioned him in the State of the Union address. He confirmed that the woman who did it was Jacinto Romero.
Britt issued a statement to the media after being asked by NBC News about his repeated repeats of his story in relation to Biden's immigration policies.
“It is past time for the media to stop covering Joe Biden's re-election campaign and start talking about the immense and very real human suffering that is currently occurring under his policies,” she said. .
“Cartels are making record-breaking profits from human trafficking. Migrants are dying at the border in historic numbers. And between brutal murders and fentanyl poisonings, far too many Americans are being killed. “That's the story the media doesn't want to tell,” she added.
NBC News reached out to Jacinto Romero for comment, but he did not immediately respond. Jacinto Romero said in an interview with CNN that he felt Britt inaccurately described his experience.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Britt denied that she misrepresented Jacinto Romero's experience and called the incident, which did not occur during the Biden presidency, to highlight what she called the administration's failed border policies. He declined to say why he chose it.
“I was very clear: I talked to one woman and she told me about being trafficked when she was 12 years old, so I didn't say teenager. “I didn't say a young woman. I said an adult woman, a woman who was trafficked at the age of 12,” she said.
Britt has been outspoken in her opposition to the Biden administration's border policies, arguing that the president's policies are creating a security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
