Marj Halperin: Katie Britt’s speech does a terrible disservice to sex trafficking victims
Scarlett Johansson’s “Saturday Night Live” open was hilarious, and there have been so many more great jokes about the oddly amateur theatrics of U.S. Sen. Katie Britt in her response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. But we can’t let the humor mask a patently cruel lie that was one of the cornerstones of her speech.
Her story of the sex trafficking of a Mexican woman was graphic and deeply disturbing. Hundreds of women are trafficked each year in Mexico, and the U.S. State Department office that tracks these things finds the Mexican government falls far short in efforts to identify victims, fund victim assistance, prosecute cases and achieve convictions, particularly when government officials are involved.
So what, exactly, makes this issue relevant in the Republican response to the State of the Union address?
Britt told us that the example she shared was Biden’s fault. “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a Third World country,” Britt said. “This is the United States of America, and it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace.”
