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Congresswoman Veronica Escobar spoke virtually to the subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Land Thursday morning about turning the El Paso Community Healing Garden into a national memorial.

“It was the deadliest attack of Latinos in modern American history,” Escobar said.

The healing garden was unveiled at Ascarate Park on August 3, 2021, the two-year anniversary of the deadly Walmart shooting.

Escobar was joined by El Pasoan, Albert Hernandez who spoke to the subcommittee about his personal story of August 3.

“I had two relatives that were killed at the Walmart massacre, one is Maribel Hernandez, my sister. And her husband Leo. Two wonderful people that perished that day,” Hernandez said.

Together, Escobar and Hernandez want to turn the garden into a national memorial to protect it for generations to come.

“With this El Paso healing garden, it needs to go down in history so more generations will see what happened here,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said turning this healing garden into a national memorial will be important for all El Pasoans.

“We have domestic terrorists in this country and we need to address this. We need to show what’s going on. We need to do something about this because it’s only going to get worse. We need to address it, and by this healing garden memorial, it will be a step in the right direction for the healing process of the city of El Paso,” Hernandez said.

The subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands hosted the hearing that talked about a collection of bills from across the country that will try to ensure public land becomes national memorials.

There was no word yet on when the next hearing would be or the date as to when the El Paso Healing Garden will be designated as a national memorial.