In her rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union speech Thursday night time, Senator Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama, informed a narrative a couple of Mexican lady who was a sufferer of intercourse trafficking on the age of 12, laying blame on the ft of the present administration.
“President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace,” she mentioned.
The story, whereas wrenching, was extremely deceptive.
Though Ms. Britt didn’t title the sufferer in her speech, she has beforehand shared the story of a girl who seems to be the identical particular person primarily based on congressional testimony, news releases and information stories.
That lady, Karla Jacinto Romero, is a Mexican citizen who doesn’t stay in america and who has spoken frequently about her experiences of being pressured into sexual slavery for 4 years. In 2023, Ms. Jacinto participated in an occasion close to the Texas border with Mexico that was also attended by three senators, together with Ms. Britt. In a video launched shortly after that journey, Ms. Britt mentioned Ms. Jacinto’s experiences.
In her speech Thursday, Ms. Britt talked concerning the harrowing story as a part of a critique of President Biden’s border insurance policies, saying that “we wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country.” She added that “this is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it.”
In reality, as first reported by the impartial journalist Jonathan Katz on TikTok on Friday, Ms. Jacinto’s experiences didn’t occur in america. She has testified that she was kidnapped in Mexico Metropolis and that her surprising expertise of being raped 1000’s of occasions passed off solely in Mexico. Furthermore, she has mentioned the kidnapping occurred in 2002 and she or he was rescued in 2006. Ms. Jacinto continues to stay in Mexico and doesn’t seem to have ever lived in america or to have sought asylum right here.
In different phrases: None of this occurred throughout President Biden’s administration, nor does it seem to have something to do together with his insurance policies concerning the U.S. border with Mexico. However that didn’t cease the first-term senator from strongly implying that the president might have someway prevented it from occurring, utilizing rhetoric that appeared calibrated to inflame public fears about immigration.
“We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis,” she mentioned. “He invited it.”
Ms. Jacinto didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. A spokesman for Ms. Britt, Sean Ross, stood behind her speech.
“The story Senator Britt told was 100 percent correct,” he mentioned in a press release. “And there are more innocent victims of that kind of disgusting, brutal trafficking by the cartels than ever before right now. The Biden administration’s policies — the policies in this country that the president falsely claims are humane — have empowered the cartels and acted as a magnet to a historic level of migrants making the dangerous journey to our border.”
He didn’t instantly reply to a follow-up query about what direct duty Mr. Biden had for what Ms. Jacinto skilled or what an anecdote about intercourse trafficking solely inside one other nation has to do with U.S. border insurance policies.
