Cartel sex trafficking victim Karla Jacinto slams Katie Britt for falsely using her story to highlight Biden's border failure and says 'it's not fair' politicians always take advantage of her

The woman whose human trafficking story Sen. Katie Britt used in her State of the Union rebuttal as a rebuke of President Joe Biden's border policies is speaking out.

Karla Jacinto Romero told CNN that politicians like Britt (R-Ala.) only want to use her story for the 'image' and she tries to steer clear of sharing her story too much with them.

Britt, 42, faced backlash after it was revealed that the anecdote she used – Romero's story – happened two decades ago and not under the Biden administration.

The Republican junior senator from Alabama insisted she did not mean to suggest the story was current, but only wanted to highlight the perils of what an open and unmitigated border could cause.

'I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image,' Romero said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. 'They only want a photo — and that to me is not fair.'

Karla Jacinto Romero says it's 'not fair' that politicians use her sex trafficking experience as an 'image' of the immigration crisis

Sen. Katie Britt centered the story of a 12-year-old child trafficking victim to illustrate the border crisis under Joe Biden. But it was revealed the story is 20 years old. Pictured: Britt delivered the GOP's State of the Union rebuttal from her kitchen table in Birmingham, Alabama

Romero's mother threw her out of the family home in Mexico City in 2004. She was captured by a cartel member and was repeatedly raped until 2008, under the presidency of George W. Bush.

Britt's response to Biden's State of the Union seems to suggest Romero's story happened because of the current president's policies at the southern border.

'I work as a spokesperson for many victims who have no voice, and I really would like them to be empathetic – all the governors, all the senators, to be empathetic with the issue of human trafficking because there are millions of girls and boys who disappear all the time,' Romero said over the weekend.

'People who are really trafficked and abused, as she [Britt] mentioned,' she added. 'And I think she [Britt] should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude.'

Asked by Fox News host Shannon Bream on Sunday to clarify if the story happened under Biden's administration, Britt replied: 'Well, I very clearly said I spoke to a woman who told me about when she was trafficked when she was 12.'

'So I didn't say a teenager, I didn't say a young woman. A grown woman – a woman – when she was trafficked when she was 12,' she added.

The Alabama senator said she didn't mean to imply that the child trafficking incident happened under the current president's watch.

Britt was chosen to deliver the Republican rebuttal to Biden's State of the Union address on Thursday evening. She spoke from her kitchen table in Birmingham, Alabama where she centered her speech on the president's lax immigration and border policies.

Sen. Britt (R-Ala.) defended using the anecdote for President Biden's border crisis – claiming she never gave a timeline and her wording was she spoke to a 'woman' about 'when she was 12'

It emerged the survivor she showcased is Karla Jacinto Romero (pictured), now a high-profile campaigner who was abused in Mexico in 2004 – years before Biden took office 

Karla Jacinto Romero was just 12-years-old when she was thrown out of her home in Mexico City and forced into four years of child prostitution

But her emotive story of a 12-year-old trafficking victim used to illustrate the border crisis under Biden sparked outrage after it emerged the ordeal actually took place in Mexico 20 years prior.

'I don't know what the F I saw,' former Fox host Megyn Kelly said as a series of insults were thrown toward the Alabama senator. '[S]he embarrassed herself, she embarrassed Republicans, and she embarrassed women.'

Another critic of Britt, writer Nick Knudsen, said she is exposed as a 'lying sack of s***.'

The GOP rising star chose to centerpiece the border crisis aspect of her rebuttal around 'a woman who shared her story with me', after they spoke in Del Rio, Texas .

'She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped,' Britt told viewers.

'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,' she recalled. 'We wouldn't be OK with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America, and it's past time we start acting like it.'

Former AP journalist Jonathan Katz was among the first to realize that Britt was speaking about the case of Karla Jacinto Romero, who was ensnared by a pimp after her mother threw her out of the family home in Mexico City in 2004.

But Britt said she wanted to tell the story to 'bring some light' to the issue of human trafficking and drug cartels 'profiting off of women.'

She hopes 'the media actually decides to cover' that aspect of the crisis and not focus on the timeline of events.

Britt's impassioned 18-minute speech infuriated liberals and was ridiculed by Scarlett Johansen who parodied it on SNL where she was derided as the 'craziest b**ch in the Target parking lot'.

Karla Jacinto Romero was forced into prostitution for four years before escaping and becoming a powerful and high-profile advocate for child sex victims, testifying to Congress in 2015 and meeting the Pope.

'Britt tells it like she was sitting by the banks of the Rio Grande holding her hand, getting her to tell the story she won't tell anyone else,' Katz remarked.

Britt appeared on the verge of tears at times as she tore into the policies President Biden emphatically defended, making an emotional appeal. Pictured: Britt with her husband two children at her family's kitchen table

At 42, Britt is the youngest ever female GOP Senator and seen as a rising star in the party

Romero testified to Congress as far back as 2015 and has become one of Mexico's best-known advocates against child trafficking 

'This senator has gone around telling the story over and over again as if she was describing actions that took place on or even near the US border during Joe Biden's presidency.

'It goes beyond misleading.'

'It just looks like she got on national television and lied about something really horrific and really important for her own personal and her party's political gain.'

Britt traveled to the border at the Del Rio Sector in Texas in January 2023 with fellow Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, according to a news release issued then from Hyde-Smith's office.

'The Senators held a roundtable with former Mexican Congresswoman Rosa María de la Garza, Fox News Contributor Sara Carter and Karla Jacinto Romero, a survivor of human trafficking,' the news release said.

'The Senators learned about cartel activity in Mexico and the work being done to rescue victims of human trafficking.'

Britt, 42, has made immigration one of her top issues in her first years in the Senate, and Republicans have seized on a surge of immigrants entering the country during Biden's term to attack the president.

Donald Trump had endorsed Britt in her 2022 primary after flipping on former Rep. Mo Brooks, who he'd first endorsed.

Britt is married to former NFL player Wesley Britt and they have two children, and Speaker Mike Johnson noted Britt is the 'only current Republican mom of school-aged kids serving in the Senate.'

The youngest Republican woman to be elected to the Senate, drew praise from some for her performance including Texas Senator Ted Cruz

'Congratulations to my friend and colleague @SenKatieBritt for showing Texans and Americans what Republicans really stand for—a strong economy, secure border, and good jobs for every American,' he posted.

'She was absolutely spot on and delivered a dynamite response,' wrote Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

But former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh called her remarks 'despicable'.

'She sat in front of the American people and she lied to us about a very serious problem,' he told CNN.