In December 2018, Jakelin Caal Maquin and Felipe Gomez Alonzo died while in CBP custody after being detained in the district that I represent.

Chairwoman Torres Small, Ranking Member Crenshaw, and Members of the subcommittee, on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE), which represents more than 700,000 Federal and District of Columbia employees…

The best way to create engagement and high morale is to participate in effective, collaborative dispute resolution.

Thank you, Chief Hastings. That is deeply concerning. The committee was told by the OIG that CBP has received the reports.

Now, Chief Hastings, I deeply appreciate the work that the men and women of Border Patrol do every single day and have done in the past year to mitigate the situation we saw at the Southern Border.

I fear the consequences should the Department not take urgent and drastic action to improve employee morale.

DHS also ranked last out of the 7 National security agencies.

Thank you. That is a great lesson learned, and it is certainly something I saw, so I am pleased that Border Patrol is addressing that.

What about pediatric equipment? One of the lessons learned for me with Jakelin's passing is not having the appropriate cuff to take her blood pressure.

These employees deserve better.

It's clear that we'll need to do more.