After Alabama Sen. Katie Britt faced mockery and censure for her response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the sex trafficking victim the Republican cited in her critique of the president accused her of “distorting my story.”
During her response to Biden’s annual speech to Congress, Britt—the youngest Republican ever elected to the Senate—attacked Biden on his economic policies and poked fun at his age. She also criticized his handling of the southern border while referencing the story of Karla Jacinto Romero, who was sex trafficked in Mexico at a young age.
Speaking to CNN’s Rafael Romo on Sunday, Romero said she felt she had been taken advantage of, and reportedly confirmed that there were several factual inaccuracies in Britt’s telling of her story.
“I hardly ever cooperate with politicians because it seems to me that they only want an image—they only want a photo—and that to me is not fair,” Romero said. “There are millions of girls and boys who disappear all the time—people who are really trafficked and abused, as she mentioned, and I think she should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude.”
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Romo said Romero also told him: “Someone distorting my story and using it for political purposes is not fair.”
Britt’s office did not respond to a request by CNN for comment. Newsweek approached a spokesperson for the senator via email for a response on Monday.
When the GOP’s official reply to the president’s speech first aired, Britt faced ridicule over her “overly dramatic” delivery—not just from Saturday Night Live, but from conservative commentators and former Republican officials as well.
During the address, she mentioned meeting Romero at the U.S.-Mexico border, who told her that she was “sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12” and that she was “raped every day.”
“We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country,” Britt said. “This is the United States of America, and it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace. It’s despicable.”
On Friday, however, Talking Points Memo journalist Jonathan M. Katz—who previously worked for the Associated Press—posted a lengthy video in which he cited evidence that suggested that Britt’s portrayal had been inaccurate.
According to the information Katz found, including from Romero’s own past testimony before Congress, she was trafficked entirely within Mexico, between 2004 and 2008—when Biden was not in the White House.
A spokesperson for Britt told several outlets that Britt’s telling “was 100 percent correct.” They also claimed: “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.”
Confronted about when the sex trafficking had occurred on Fox News, Britt defended herself by saying that she referred to “a grown woman” who “was trafficked when she was 12.”
However, according to Romo, Romero picked another hole in Britt’s telling of her story. Not only did the trafficking occur when George W. Bush was in the White House and not occur in the U.S., Romero reportedly said that she was not trafficked by Mexican cartels but by a pimp.
He also recounted her telling him that no one had approached her for permission to use her story in the political broadcast.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.