WATCH: House hearing examines law enforcement staffing challenges at the U.S. border

A House Oversight subcommittee held a hearing Tuesday on the staffing and morale challenges at the southwest border.

Watch the hearing in the player above.

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari testified before the House subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs that inadequate staffing to handle the increase in migrant crossings at the southern border in recent years has depressed employee morale, according to his prepared testimony.

Based on observations, interviews and surveys, “law enforcement personnel feel overworked and are assigned to duties not germane to their primary mission,” he wrote.

The statement notes that “migrant encounters” at the border have ballooned, from 978,000 in 2019 to 2.4 million in 2022, while the number of border patrol agents has remained more or less the same.

“These dramatic increases have magnified existing staffing challenges,” Cuffari said during his testimony.