A woman whose personal story of sex trafficking was shared, with details not clearly stated, in Sen. Katie Britt’s State of the Union response says politicians on both side of the border “only want an image.”

CNN interviewed Karla Jacinto Romero Sunday, who was a victim of trafficking during the George W. Bush administration.

“I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image ….That to me is not fair,” Romero said.

Romero said she met Britt at an event at the U.S.-Mexican border between officials and anti-trafficking activists. She said she was never trafficked into the United States. She was not trafficked by Mexican drug cartels, but by a pimp forcing girls into sex work.

Mexican politicians have also used her story for political purposes, she said.

“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,” Romero said.

“People .. are really trafficked and abused, as she (Britt) mentioned. And I think she (Britt) should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude.”

Britt defended her response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech Sunday, including her story about a woman who became a victim of human trafficking at the age of 12.

Journalists, including former foreign correspondent Jonathan Katz, noted that the events in the story happened more than 20 years ago in Mexico, well before Biden took office.

Speaking to The Washington Post, Britt’s spokesman Sean Ross said that the senator was talking about Romero and disputed that Britt’s language was misleading.

Britt spoke Thursday night from her home in Montgomery on the “crisis” of Biden’s immigration and border policies.

In an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Britt said that she did not intend to imply that the story took place while Biden was in office.

However, she insisted that his policies have led to an increase of human trafficking at the border. The media has refused to cover the issue, she says.

“I very specifically said, ‘This is what President Biden did during his first 100 days,’” Britt said during her appearance Sunday. “Those types of [policies] act as a magnet to have more and more people here.”