Britt defends using 20-year-old crime to attack Biden

Alabama senator says trafficking has gone up, while giving no evidence

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who delivered the Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, pushed back against criticisms she falsely linked a harrowing account of a young woman’s sex trafficking to Biden’s immigration policies, even though the abuse happened nearly 20 years ago and in Mexico.

The host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream, asked Britt if she meant to “give the impression that this horrible story happened on President Biden’s watch.”

Britt replied “no” before defensively explaining she was speaking about the executive actions on the border Biden took in his first 100 days as president.

Britt said she spoke to Border Patrol officers and “victims of drug cartels” during a trip to the border when she was a new senator. She said that was why she decided it would be important to elevate the story of a human trafficking victim, then claiming without evidence trafficking has “gone up” under the Biden administration.

“This is a story of what is happening now at an astronomical rate, and we have to bring attention to it,” Britt said.

Her communications director told The Washington Post the anecdote was about Karla Jacinto Romero, who has testified before Congress about being forced to work in Mexican brothels from 2004 to 2008.

In her rebuttal Thursday night,

Katie Britt

Britt opened by blaming Biden for the surge of migrants at the border, saying: “Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days.” She then spoke about her meeting with the woman when she took office last year and graphically described the assaults against her.

When asked again Sunday if she meant to link the woman’s assault to Biden, Britt said she “very clearly said I spoke to a woman who told me about when she was trafficked.” However, her rebuttal speech gave no indication of when the woman had been rescued.

“She is a victim’s rights advocate who is telling this is what drug cartels are doing. This is how they’re profiting off of women. And it is disgusting,” Britt said Sunday.

As Romero said in testimony nine years ago, her mother threw her out at age 12 and she “fell prey to a professional pimp.”

She says she then spent four years in brothels before a regular client helped her escape when she was 16. There is no indication in her story drug cartels were involved, though Britt said that in the State of the Union response and has made a similar claim on at least one other occasion.

Romero was never trafficked to the U.S.; instead, she said many men who paid to have sex with her were “foreigners visiting my city looking to have sexual interactions with minors like me.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was asked Sunday on ABC News’s This Week about Britt’s remarks.

“I’ll leave it to her to explain the falsehoods, but I think it illustrates the bigger issue,” Buttigieg said. “She’s a United States senator, and the United States Senate right now could be acting to help secure the southern border.”

This is a story of what is happening now at an astronomical rate, and we have to bring attention to it.”

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala.