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In her rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union speech Thursday night time, Senator Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama, advised a narrative a couple of Mexican girl who was a sufferer of intercourse trafficking on the age of 12, laying blame on the ft of the present administration.
“President Biden’s border insurance policies are a shame,” she mentioned.
The story, whereas wrenching, was extremely deceptive.
Though Ms. Britt didn’t identify the sufferer in her speech, she has beforehand shared the story of a girl who seems to be the identical particular person based mostly on congressional testimony, information releases and information studies.
That girl, Karla Jacinto Romero, is a Mexican citizen who doesn’t reside in the US and who has spoken continuously about her experiences of being pressured into sexual slavery for 4 years. In 2023, Ms. Jacinto participated in an occasion close to the Texas border with Mexico that was additionally attended by three senators, together with Ms. Britt. In a video launched shortly after that journey, Ms. Britt mentioned Ms. Jacinto’s experiences.
In her speech Thursday, Ms. Britt talked concerning the harrowing story as a part of a critique of President Biden’s border insurance policies, saying that “we wouldn’t be OK with this occurring in a third-world nation.” She added that “that is the US of America, and it’s previous time, for my part, that we begin appearing prefer it.”
Actually, as first reported by the impartial journalist Jonathan Katz on TikTok on Friday, Ms. Jacinto’s experiences didn’t occur in the US. She has testified that she was kidnapped in Mexico Metropolis and that her surprising expertise of being raped 1000’s of occasions befell completely in Mexico. Furthermore, she has mentioned the kidnapping occurred in 2002 and he or she was rescued in 2006. Ms. Jacinto continues to reside in Mexico and doesn’t seem to have ever lived in the US or to have sought asylum right here.
In different phrases: None of this occurred throughout President Biden’s administration. However that didn’t cease the first-term senator from strongly implying that the president might have in some way prevented it from occurring, utilizing rhetoric that appeared calibrated to inflame public fears about immigration.
“We all know that President Biden didn’t simply create this border disaster,” she mentioned. “He invited it.”
Ms. Jacinto didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. A spokesman for Ms. Britt, Sean Ross, stood behind her speech.
“The story Senator Britt advised was one hundred pc appropriate,” he mentioned in an announcement. “And there are extra harmless victims of that type of disgusting, brutal trafficking by the cartels than ever earlier than proper now. The Biden administration’s insurance policies — the insurance policies on this nation that the president falsely claims are humane — have empowered the cartels and acted as a magnet to a historic degree of migrants making the harmful journey to our border.”
He didn’t instantly reply to a follow-up query about what direct accountability Mr. Biden had for what Ms. Jacinto skilled or what an anecdote about intercourse trafficking completely inside one other nation has to do with U.S. border insurance policies.
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