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CNN
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Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, in her Republican response to Thursday’s State of the Union address, vividly described a woman who was “sex trafficked by a cartel from the age of 12,” telling a story she told He used it as an anecdote and said: President Joe Biden’s immigration policy failures. But the story she supposedly described did not take place during Biden’s time as president or vice president, nor did it take place in the United States.
“When I first took office, I did something different. I traveled to the Del Rio area of Texas and spoke to a woman there who told me her story. “She was being sex trafficked by a cartel. She said she was raped not only every day, but multiple times a day,” Britt said from her home in Alabama.
She then detailed how “the cartel put her on a shoebox mattress in a room and let men pass through the door again and again for hours.”
“We cannot tolerate something like this happening in a third world country,” Britt said. “This is the United States of America, and it’s past time for us to act like that. President Biden’s border crisis is shameful. It’s despicable. And it’s almost completely preventable.”
In a detailed video posted to TikTok on Friday, freelance journalist Jonathan Katz tracks down what appears to be an article Britt was referring to, not when Biden was president or vice president, but in the 2000s. Halfway through, I discovered what happened in Mexico.
Mr. Katz cites a 2023 press release from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, which states that Sen. Blackburn, along with Sen. Britt and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, announced that in January 2023, shortly after Britt’s inauguration. visited Eagle Pass, Texas, and heard from Congresswoman Carla Jacinto Romero. Survivors of human trafficking, etc.
“Senators learned about cartel activity in Mexico and the work being done to rescue victims of human trafficking,” the press release states.
Jacinto Romero has shared his story publicly, including at a hearing on sex trafficking held by the House Foreign Affairs and Global Human Rights Subcommittee in 2015. She said through her interpreter that for four years, starting from the age of 12, she was “mentally and sexually abused over and over again.” She explained how she ran away to a shelter when she was 16 and was able to “grow into an activist”.
In her testimony, Jacinto Romero said she was 22 years old, meaning the sexual abuse began about 10 years ago.
According to her social media accounts, Britt has previously referenced articles she gave Thursday, including her Sept. 27, 2023, speech at the U.S. Capitol.
In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for Britt’s office would not confirm or deny that Britt shared Jacinto Romero’s account, but said the senator’s story is “100% accurate. That’s correct.”
“The Biden administration’s policies, the policies of a country the president falsely claims are humane, have empowered cartels and become a magnet for historic levels of migrants making the perilous journey to the border. “During that journey, children, women and men are exposed to heart-breaking, heart-wrenching horrors in our own backyards,” said Sean, spokesperson.・Ross said.
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