Republican Sen. Katie Boyd Britt’s much-panned State of the Union response became more problematic over the weekend when it was revealed that she misleadingly used an anecdote involving a Mexican sex-trafficking victim to attack President Biden’s border policies.
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And her and her office’s defense of it are little better. Indeed, they compound the problems.
To recap: The senator from Alabama told the story of a girl who was “sex-trafficked by the cartels” and raped multiple times a day for years starting at age 12. Britt bookended the story by citing Biden’s border policies. “We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country,” she concluded. “This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”
But this had nothing to do with the United States or Biden’s border policies. After independent journalist Jonathan Katz noted that the story echoed that of Karla Jacinto Romero, whom Britt met with on the border in early 2023, Britt’s office confirmed that the story was Jacinto’s. Except it happened in the 2000s, during the George W. Bush administration, and it happened far from the border in Mexico.
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The Washington Post’s Fact Checker awarded Britt’s summary four Pinnochios, noting that her linkage of the tragic story to Biden sure made it sound like Jacinto was sex-trafficked in the United States and like our border policies were at fault.
Britt and her office have responded to the fact checks of the speech with defiance. But their attempted justifications are little better, and Jacinto herself has now taken issue with Britt’s use of her story.
In a statement to The Post over the weekend, a Britt spokesman maintained that the story was “100% correct.”
“And there are more innocent victims of that kind of disgusting, brutal trafficking by the cartels than ever before right now,” he added.
Britt herself took to “Fox News Sunday,” where she was asked to weigh in on the fact checks. She claimed that she never intended to suggest this had happened on Biden’s watch, but that she wanted to spotlight the human cost of trafficking by the cartels.
“And so listening to her story, she is a victim’s right advocate who is telling, this is what drug cartels are doing, this is how they’re profiting off of women,” Britt said. “And it is disgusting. And so I am hopeful that it brings some light to it.”
Britt cited Department of Homeland Security data that shows that human trafficking by cartels has grown from a $500 million industry in 2018 to $13 billion.
The main problem here is that, in addition to Jacinto’s story not involving Biden, the United States or even the border, it also doesn’t involve the cartels.
Jacinto testified to Congress in 2015 that she was trafficked by a “professional pimp.” The cartels were invoked sparingly at that hearing, with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) noting that trafficking “seems to be less and less huge cartels and much more just small organizations.” The word “cartel” did not appear in a 1,500-word 2015 CNN profile of Jacinto.
And now Jacinto herself is speaking out. She has made clear to the CNN reporter who wrote that profile that she was not trafficked by the cartels.
She also appeared to criticize Britt’s use of her story.
“I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image,” Jacinto said. “They only want a photo — and that to me is not fair.”
She added that people “are really trafficked and abused, as [Britt] mentioned. And I think she should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude.”
Having the subject of your own anecdote say that kind of thing surely reinforces the folly of how Britt invoked it. Jacinto suggests that Britt was effectively using her for political gain, and using her poorly.
And that’s really the rub here. There is no question that sex trafficking and human trafficking are major problems — and even that cartel trafficking has grown significantly in recent years. Britt could have said that.
But pointing to a story that doesn’t involve Biden, immigration or the cartels and is two decades old to attack Biden’s present-day border policies and warn about the cartels doesn’t really make any sense. (You could even make a case that, to the extent U.S. immigration policy is involved at all, the anecdote reinforces the need for an accessible asylum process for victims like Jacinto.)
Indeed, when Jacinto testified to Congress in 2015, the focus wasn’t on immigration policies or the cartels; it was on the toll of human trafficking. The Republicans present didn’t even attack the Obama-Biden administration for its border policies; Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) actually credited the administration for working with Congress to make “great strides in combating trafficking.”
Nine years later, though, Republicans are intent upon relentlessly attacking Biden on immigration. So just as GOP lawmakers feel the need to accuse migrants of horrific crimes that it turns out they didn’t actually commit, Britt felt the need to shoehorn Jacinto’s story into her broadside against Biden’s border policies.
It’s shoddy, at the very least. And the fact that the very sympathetic victim involved has now called that out makes it even less defensible.
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And her and her office’s defense of it are little better. Indeed, they compound the problems.
To recap: The senator from Alabama told the story of a girl who was “sex-trafficked by the cartels” and raped multiple times a day for years starting at age 12. Britt bookended the story by citing Biden’s border policies. “We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country,” she concluded. “This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”
But this had nothing to do with the United States or Biden’s border policies. After independent journalist Jonathan Katz noted that the story echoed that of Karla Jacinto Romero, whom Britt met with on the border in early 2023, Britt’s office confirmed that the story was Jacinto’s. Except it happened in the 2000s, during the George W. Bush administration, and it happened far from the border in Mexico.
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The Washington Post’s Fact Checker awarded Britt’s summary four Pinnochios, noting that her linkage of the tragic story to Biden sure made it sound like Jacinto was sex-trafficked in the United States and like our border policies were at fault.
Britt and her office have responded to the fact checks of the speech with defiance. But their attempted justifications are little better, and Jacinto herself has now taken issue with Britt’s use of her story.
In a statement to The Post over the weekend, a Britt spokesman maintained that the story was “100% correct.”
“And there are more innocent victims of that kind of disgusting, brutal trafficking by the cartels than ever before right now,” he added.
Britt herself took to “Fox News Sunday,” where she was asked to weigh in on the fact checks. She claimed that she never intended to suggest this had happened on Biden’s watch, but that she wanted to spotlight the human cost of trafficking by the cartels.
“And so listening to her story, she is a victim’s right advocate who is telling, this is what drug cartels are doing, this is how they’re profiting off of women,” Britt said. “And it is disgusting. And so I am hopeful that it brings some light to it.”
Britt cited Department of Homeland Security data that shows that human trafficking by cartels has grown from a $500 million industry in 2018 to $13 billion.
The main problem here is that, in addition to Jacinto’s story not involving Biden, the United States or even the border, it also doesn’t involve the cartels.
Jacinto testified to Congress in 2015 that she was trafficked by a “professional pimp.” The cartels were invoked sparingly at that hearing, with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) noting that trafficking “seems to be less and less huge cartels and much more just small organizations.” The word “cartel” did not appear in a 1,500-word 2015 CNN profile of Jacinto.
And now Jacinto herself is speaking out. She has made clear to the CNN reporter who wrote that profile that she was not trafficked by the cartels.
She also appeared to criticize Britt’s use of her story.
“I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image,” Jacinto said. “They only want a photo — and that to me is not fair.”
She added that people “are really trafficked and abused, as [Britt] mentioned. And I think she should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude.”
Having the subject of your own anecdote say that kind of thing surely reinforces the folly of how Britt invoked it. Jacinto suggests that Britt was effectively using her for political gain, and using her poorly.
And that’s really the rub here. There is no question that sex trafficking and human trafficking are major problems — and even that cartel trafficking has grown significantly in recent years. Britt could have said that.
But pointing to a story that doesn’t involve Biden, immigration or the cartels and is two decades old to attack Biden’s present-day border policies and warn about the cartels doesn’t really make any sense. (You could even make a case that, to the extent U.S. immigration policy is involved at all, the anecdote reinforces the need for an accessible asylum process for victims like Jacinto.)
Indeed, when Jacinto testified to Congress in 2015, the focus wasn’t on immigration policies or the cartels; it was on the toll of human trafficking. The Republicans present didn’t even attack the Obama-Biden administration for its border policies; Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) actually credited the administration for working with Congress to make “great strides in combating trafficking.”
Nine years later, though, Republicans are intent upon relentlessly attacking Biden on immigration. So just as GOP lawmakers feel the need to accuse migrants of horrific crimes that it turns out they didn’t actually commit, Britt felt the need to shoehorn Jacinto’s story into her broadside against Biden’s border policies.
It’s shoddy, at the very least. And the fact that the very sympathetic victim involved has now called that out makes it even less defensible.
