Britt Busted For Misleading Sex-Trafficking Story In Bizarre SOTU Response

Already the subject of bipartisan ridicule for the jaw-droppingly strange persona she displayed in her Republican response to the State of the Union address, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt is now taking more serious fire -- for having deceptively framed a 16-year-old anecdote about sex trafficking to mislead the audience about when and where the crime happened and how she learned about it. 

Observers of all political stripes winced as soon as first-termer Britt started speaking, sounding every bit like she was delivering an absurdly melodramatic audition for a B-movie part. This video nicely captures the difference between Normal Britt and Thursday night's godawful Middle-School-Theater Britt: 

As she proceeded through her bizarre delivery, Britt eventually came to the subject of border security. Within that passage, she shared an anecdote about a victim of sex trafficking, and did so in a way that misled the audience in three dimensions, making it sound like: 

• Britt happened to encounter a woman who shared her story in a one-on-one conversation 
• The sex trafficking happened recently -- and during Biden's term
• The sex trafficking occurred in the United States

None of that is true. 

Here's what Britt said: 

When I took office [in 2023], I took a different approach. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas. That’s where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped.The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoebox of a room, and they sent men through that door over and over again for hours and hours on end.

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. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.

On Friday, independent journalist Jonathan Katz posted a video in which he revealed that the unnamed woman Britt described is a Mexican citizen and prominent public advocate against human trafficking named Karla Jacinto Romero who testified before Congress in 2015.

Britt's framing -- "I spoke to a woman" in the Del Rio sector "who shared her story with me" -- made it sound like she came across a little-known person, living in America, who decided to open up to Britt in an intimate conversation. In fact, Britt heard Romero's account when Britt, Romero, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn participated in a public, roundtable discussion.

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At the event, 31-year-old Romero gave her frequently-shared and reported account of having been sex-trafficked between the ages of 12 and 16 -- in other words, way back during the George W. Bush administration. 

Beyond serving as an indicator of how long ago Romero's abuse occurred, the question of who was US president at the time is utterly irrelevant, because Romero wasn't even trafficked in the United States or anywhere near it. It all took place inside Mexico and, from reporting on her story, it appears most or all of her forced-prostitution happened in the vicinity of Mexico City -- nearly 1,000 miles from the American border.

In her speech, Britt melodramatically proclaimed, "We wouldn't be ok with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America." And now we find the whole thing did happen in a Third World country. 

Romero doesn't even live in the United States, making Britt's emphasis on having spoken with her near Del Rio, Texas all the more misleading. Interviewed from Mexico by the New York Times, Romero said when she learned about Britt using her story in the speech, "I thought it was very strange."

There are enough real horror stories associated with America's open border to make the case for better security. Britt's decision to mislead her audience with an anecdote about sex trafficking that happened some 16 years ago far outside America is as baffling as her choice of persona for her first big moment in the spotlight.