Fact-checking Britt's retelling of a sex trafficking survivor's story
Delivering the Republican response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told the harrowing story of a woman who was sex trafficked by drug cartels when she was 12.
Posted — UpdatedDelivering the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told the harrowing story of a woman who was sex trafficked by drug cartels when she was 12. In the same breath, Britt blamed Biden for not only creating but inviting a crisis at the U.S. southern border.
"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," Britt said. "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," Britt continued. "And it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden's border policies are a disgrace. This crisis is despicable. And the truth is it is almost entirely preventable."
But the woman Britt spoke about was trafficked in the 2000s in central Mexico, not in the U.S. or during Biden’s presidency. The survivor has said it was not a drug cartel that trafficked her, and PolitiFact found no evidence that she was attempting to migrate to the U.S. when it happened.
On "Fox News Sunday," Britt told host Shannon Bream that she was contrasting Biden’s first 100 days with hers, during which she visited the southern border.
"I very clearly said I spoke to a woman who told me about when she was trafficked when she was 12. … She was a victims’ rights advocate who was telling this is what drug cartels are doing, this is how they're profiting off of women and it is disgusting," Britt said.
Britt met Jacinto in Del Rio, Texas, during a discussion about human trafficking.
Here’s a look into Britt’s misleading framing of Jacinto’s story, and the facts she got wrong.
The facts behind Jacinto’s sex trafficking story
Britt used Jacinto’s story to illustrate the dangers of migration through the U.S.-Mexico border under Biden.
Jacinto told CNN that Britt did not ask for permission to use her story.
"I hardly ever cooperate with politicians because it seems to me that they only want an image, they only want a photo and that to me is not fair," Jacinto said, according to CNN’s translation of her interview. "I think Sen. Britt should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude."
PolitiFact ruling
While speaking about Biden’s immigration policies, Britt said a woman had been "sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12 … We wouldn't be OK with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America."
Britt was talking about Jacinto, who was sex trafficked when she was 12 years old. But Britt omitted significant facts and context about when and where this happened. It was in the early 2000s in Mexico, not during the Biden administration or in the United States.
Jacinto has said a pimp trafficked her after she left an abusive home and went to live with a man she fell in love with. Jacinto has not said this was related to immigration to the United States.
We rate Britt’s claim False.
• Credits
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