Brian Hastings, a top Border Patrol official, stared grimly at the television cameras.

It was July 1, 2019, and Hastings was facing down a scandal: News reports had revealed that Border Patrol agents were posting wildly offensive comments and memes in a secret Facebook group.

Agents had shared crudely manipulated images of men sexually assaulting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and frequent antagonist of the Border Patrol; joked about migrants who died while trying to enter the United States; and made racist insults about Central Americans. The group called itself "I'm 10-15," Border Patrol radio code for "aliens in custody," and included some 9,500 current or former agents.

Critics of the agency -- already concerned about the separation of migrant families and deplorable conditions in detention facilities -- saw the vulgar Facebook posts as further evidence that a culture of casual racism and misogyny was festering within the Border Patrol.

On national TV that day, Hastings vowed that any agent who engaged in online misconduct would be held accountable. "We take all of the posts that were put out today very seriously," said Hastings, who was then the chief of law of enforcement operations for the patrol and now oversees the Rio Grande Valley sector. "Each one of these allegations will be thoroughly investigated." The internal affairs unit of Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, had already opened an investigation, he said.

Within days, the horrified leaders of the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Reform announced a separate probe of the group, whose existence was first exposed by ProPublica.

But now, more than a year later, after one of the most sweeping internal investigations in the history of the agency, CBP has provided little new information about "I'm 10-15" or its efforts to address toxic attitudes within the ranks.