WASHINGTON — Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., has come under fire in recent days over allegations that she misrepresented the story of a sex trafficking victim in the Republican response to the State of the Union last week.
An NBC News review of her remarks over the last year shows it’s an anecdote she’s used often to criticize the Biden administration’s border policies, though the victim she references was trafficked through Mexico roughly two decades ago.
During her response to the State of the Union, the freshman senator spoke about her visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023 and told a graphic story involving 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 sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartel at the age of 12. She told me not that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped,” Britt said during her address on Thursday.
“We wouldn’t be ok with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it,” she added.
It was later reported by an independent journalist that the woman in Britt’s speech was Karla Jacinto Romero and that she was trafficked in Mexico, not the United States, when Republican George W. Bush was president. Jacinto Romero testified before Congress in 2015, telling members she was trafficked by a pimp, not by Mexican drug cartels, as Britt suggested.
NBC News has found that prior to the State of the Union response, the junior Alabama senator had referenced Jacinto Romero’s story at least five separate times over the last year in press conferences and cable news interviews to criticize the Biden Administration for its border policies, implying that Jacinto Romero’s trafficking and rape occurred under the Biden Administration.
“As a mom, to sit across from a young woman who told me it wasn’t that she was raped every day, it was how many times a day she was raped at the hands of the drug cartels,” Britt said during a press conference on the Biden administration lifting the Title 42 immigration policy on May 11, 2023.
“I have talked to these young women, and 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 human trafficking at the border on July 20, 2023.
During another press conference on September 20, 2023, regarding Biden’s “Border Catastrophe,” Britt again referenced Jacinto Romero’s account of rape.
“I have talked to women who have not just told me that they were raped, but they’ve told me how many times a day they were raped at the hands of the drug cartels,” she said.
Although Britt has never named Jacinto Romero in the multiple times she referred to her story, a spokesperson for her office confirmed to The Washington Post that the woman cited in her State of the Union response address was Jacinto Romero.
Asked by NBC News about her repeated re-tellings of the story in connection to Biden’s immigration policies, Britt issued a statement targeting the media.
“It’s past time for the media to stop covering for Joe Biden’s re-election campaign and start talking about the immense, very real human suffering that’s occurring right now under his policies,” she said.
“The cartels are making record-shattering profits from human trafficking. Historic numbers of migrants are dying at the border. 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 has reached out to Jacinto Romero for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Speaking to CNN, Jacinto Romero said she felt that Britt told an inaccurate story of her experience.
During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Britt did not acknowledge that she misrepresented Jacinto Romero’s experiences, and declined to say why she chose a case that did not happen under Biden’s presidency to highlight what she referred to as the administration’s failed border policies.
“I very, very clearly, said, I spoke to a woman who told me about when she was trafficked when she was 12. So I didn’t say a teenager. I didn’t say a young woman. A grown woman, a woman when she was trafficked when she was 12.” she said.
Britt has been outspoken about her opposition to the Biden Administration’s border policies, arguing that the president’s policies have caused a security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
