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— Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-Alabama), In the Republican response to the State of the Union addressMarch 7th
If you watched Britt’s speech Thursday night, you probably thought she was talking about the latest victims of sex trafficking who were abused in the United States. President Biden’s policies have put us in a difficult situation.
If you did, you would have been wrong. Britt’s communications director, Sean Ross, confirmed that she was talking about Carla Jacinto Romero. He testified before Congress about his forced labor in Mexican brothels from 2004 to 2008. (What Britt was talking about was first revealed in a viral TikTok by journalist Jonathan Katz Romero) In a phone conversation and statement, Ross said Britt’s wording was misleading. I objected.
we disagree. Let’s take a look.
Britt’s description of Romero’s experience was central to her rebuttal to Biden’s speech. There is no indication from the way Britt frames her story that she is talking about women who worked in Mexican brothels during the George W. Bush administration. This is how the passage unfolds.
- She first blamed Biden for the surge of migrants at the border.
- And she says she visited the border shortly after taking office. That will be in 2023.
- She recounted the story of an anonymous victim she met during her travels. The implication is that women recently crossed the border because of “sex trafficking by cartels.”
- She strongly suggests that her abuse took place in the United States. This is the United States of America, and I think it’s past time for us to start acting like that. ”
- She concluded by emphasizing that these human trafficking allegations are Biden’s fault, saying, “President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”
But Biden has nothing to do with Romero’s story. As she testified nine years ago, she was kicked out of her home by her mother when she was 12 and she “fell prey to professional pimps.” She says she then spent four years in a brothel, and when she was 16 she escaped with the help of a patron. There is no indication that drug cartels were involved in her story, but Britt said so in her State of the Union address, and she has made similar claims at least on other occasions. Romero was never trafficked into the United States. Instead, she says, many of the men who paid to have sex with her were “foreigners visiting my city wanting to have sexual relations with minors like me.”
In a YouTube video, Britt shows an image of her hugging Romero during a trip to the border in 2023. “If we, the leaders of the world’s greatest country, do not fight to protect the most vulnerable, we are not doing our job,” she said. In video. Again, the implication is that this happened on Biden’s watch.
When Donald Trump was president, he regularly denounced human trafficking, which he claimed was happening at the border, including “thousands of young girls and women” being smuggled across the border for prostitution. Was. In 2019 we investigated that claim and found no evidence to support it. Most human trafficking prosecutions typically involve legal border crossings, visa fraud, and air travel to the United States. Victims’ organizations say cases of forced kidnapping across borders are relatively rare. This may be one reason why Britt regularly cites incidents that happened long ago that did not involve crossing borders.
Mr. Ross, Mr. Britt’s spokesman, said Mr. Romero’s story hinted at the human trafficking currently occurring at the border, which should have been clear from the structure of Mr. Britt’s speech.
He said the reference to a “Third World country” was general and was not intended to refer to Mexico, which is not a Third World country. Third World is an old Cold War term that was previously used to refer to poor and developing countries. The Global South, which refers to low income and high poverty, is a more common expression today. Although Mexico is considered part of the Global South, it is also a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Ross said in a written statement:
- “Senator Britt was 100% right. And now, more than ever, there are more innocent victims of this kind of abhorrent and brutal human trafficking by cartels. The country’s policies, which it falsely claims to have, have empowered cartels and acted as a magnet for historic levels of migrants who make the perilous journey to the border. Children, women, and men are being exposed to heart-breaking, heart-wrenching horrors right in our own backyards. And right here at home, the Biden administration’s policies are causing more Americans to become addicted to fentanyl. More suffering is occurring, including being murdered. These human costs are real, and it is past time for some on the left to stop pretending they are not.”
In such high-profile speeches, politicians should not mislead voters with emotional language. Romero’s story is tragic and may be reminiscent of other Mexican girls trapped in the country’s sex industry. But she was not trafficked across the border, and her story has nothing to do with Biden. Because Britt couldn’t make it clear, she got “Four Pinocchios.”
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