Just over a month after a fatal stabbing at one of Kansas’s premier dairy operations exposed the legal limbo facing agriculture’s workforce, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson stood on the World Dairy Expo trade show floor and delivered a message: The solution isn’t coming from USDA — it’s in Congress’ hands.
And he’s trying to make it happen.
“We need to make sure we have a great workforce, temporary, whatever it is,” Thompson told AgriTalk as the national anthem played over the expo floor. “This is non-amnesty, non-immigration. There’s no pathway to stay here. Temporary agriculture workforce.”
He’s talking about the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act (SAWA) — a bill that would create the year-round visa program dairy desperately needs. The same program Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said at World Dairy Expo she can’t deliver on her own.
“The challenge is that this is a congressionally authorized program that very clearly states seasonal,” Rollins said in a remarkably candid media Q&A session. “USDA doesn’t run this program.”
For dairy farmers caught between a workforce that produces 79% of U.S. milk and an immigration system that offers them no legal pathway, the question is whether Congress will act before the next crisis hits.
The Kansas Tragedy That Sparked a Reckoning
On Aug. 31, 2026, a workplace dispute at Kansas Dairy Development in Deerfield turned deadly. Adonis Edgardo Aguilar-Juarez, 32, died from stab wounds sustained during an altercation at the massive calf and heifer facility that houses up to 100,000 head of cattle.
Erlin Lagos-Gonzales, 43, a Honduran citizen, was charged with voluntary manslaughter. He’d been living in the U.S. without legal authorization since 2019 and had a deportation order issued in July 2025 that was never executed.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach seized on the case as evidence for stricter immigration enforcement. His Democratic opponent in this year’s election, Chris Mann, argued sheriffs need resources, not mandates.
But lost in the political football was a more fundamental reality: Both men were likely working in an industry that desperately needs them but offers no legal way to be there.
Kansas Dairy Development CEO Jason Shamburg confirmed both employees had worked there for years — one for four years, the other nearly six.
“This is a very sad and unfortunate situation,” Shamburg said.
Kansas Dairy Development employs 200 people to care for cattle from 10 states. It’s one of the nation’s leading contract growers, and Shamburg has been clear about what drives their success.
“It’s absolutely about our team of great people,” Shamburg told Dairy Herd Management. “It’s about consistency, it’s about animal husbandry, it’s about cleanliness.”
That team — like dairy teams across America — is overwhelmingly immigrant. And Kansas is leading the nation’s dairy expansion, adding 29,000 cows year over year with 13.9% production growth.
The contradiction is stark: The industry is booming, but it’s built on a workforce living in legal limbo.
What SAWA Would Do — And Why It’s Stalled
Thompson’s Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act has been introduced before, but this time, he says, the momentum is different.
“We have a coalition of over 600 organizations,” Thompson says. “Most of them are all agriculture, but I will say the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of those organizations as well. We have 60 co-sponsors.”
SAWA would create:
- A year-round agricultural visa program for livestock, dairy, and greenhouse operations.
- A temporary worker status with no pathway to permanent residency (non-amnesty).
- A modernized H-2A program that works for 365-day operations, not just seasonal crops.
The Urgency in the Numbers
Thompson lays out the case: “In 1995, 11,000 positions were advertised under H-2A. Fast-forward to 2025 — over 400,000 positions advertised.”
That explosion shows how dependent U.S. agriculture has become on a program that was never designed to handle this scale — and doesn’t work for year-round operations like dairy.
“If we want food security and we want national security, we need to make sure we have a great workforce,” Thompson says.
Why USDA Can’t Fix This Alone
At World Dairy Expo, Rollins made it painfully clear: USDA’s hands are tied.
“The first conversation I had in my official capacity with our great dairy leadership from around the country, within a week or two of me starting, was on the labor challenges for dairy,” Rollins said.
Twenty months later, the problem remains largely unsolved.
The Bureaucratic Reality
H-2A is controlled by:
- Department of Labor (writes the rules)
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Homeland Security (process applications)
- Not USDA
“The challenge is that this is a congressionally authorized program that very clearly states seasonal,” Rollins said. “Within the bounds of that statutory very clear direction, we have to figure out how to make sure we’re serving our producers to the very best of our ability, while we hopefully wait for Congress quickly to make some changes.”
In June 2025, USDA issued a clarification allowing dairy farmers to file for temporary H-2A visas — an attempt to stretch the seasonal program to cover some dairy needs.
But when asked how many farms have used it? Rollins had no data.
“That silence says a lot,” one dairy advocate notes. “Either it’s not helping, or they’re not tracking it.”
Rollins expressed cautious optimism about new Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, calling him an expert in this area from the first Trump administration.
“I’m grateful to him for taking a really good look at this to see what we can do within the bounds of the law,” Rollins said.
But “within the bounds of the law” is the operative phrase; the law says “seasonal.” Only Congress can change that.
The National Security Argument
Both Rollins and Thompson frame dairy’s labor crisis as bigger than agriculture.
“I think most Americans agree that it’s a national security issue,” Rollins said. “We have to make sure that our producers have the labor that they need to do what they do best.”
Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, puts it even more bluntly: “This is bigger than just a dairy issue. This is a feeding America issue, which is national security. Roughly half of all on-farm labor in America is unauthorized. We cannot feed ourselves as a country without these workers. One of the lessons we learned from WWII is that a country that cannot feed itself without imports is at greater risk from their enemies.”
Thompson echoes that urgency, noting that the statistic that “really gets people’s attention” is the jump from 11,000 H-2A positions in 1995 to over 400,000 in 2025.
“It shows you where we are,” Thompson says. “If we want food security and national security, we need to make sure we have a great workforce.”
The South Dakota Nightmare
The urgency isn’t theoretical. It’s playing out in real time.
In spring 2025, Rodney and Dorothy Elliott of Drumgoon Dairy in Lake Norden, S.D., lost 38 employees in a single day after a Department of Homeland Security audit. Their 6,500-cow operation was left with 16 workers.
“We didn’t just lose employees; we lost years of experience, skills, knowledge and a team culture that we had built over the past 10 years or more,” Dorothy told Dairy Herd Management.
The Elliotts fear not just for their own survival, but for the industry’s.
“Basically, we’ve turned off the tap, but we’ve done nothing to create a solution to find employees for the dairy industry,” Dorothy said.
That’s exactly what SAWA is designed to address — but only if Congress acts.
The Misinformation Problem
Thompson acknowledges that SAWA faces opposition rooted in misunderstanding.
“They’re just people that unfortunately were just non-informed,” Thompson says. “They spoke out in ignorance, and I get that part. But the truth matters, facts matter. This is non-amnesty, non-immigration. There’s no pathway to stay here. Temporary agriculture workforce.”
He’s pushing back against critics who conflate temporary worker visas with amnesty or permanent immigration pathways.
“This was created in the ’80s under Ronald Reagan,” Thompson notes, emphasizing the program’s conservative roots.
The challenge is cutting through political noise to get to the policy reality: dairy needs workers, Americans won’t do the jobs, and the current system doesn’t work.
What Happens Next
Thompson is building momentum with a multistate tour focused on SAWA, hitting Missouri and Iowa in the coming days.
“We’re just building that enthusiasm, that momentum,” Thompson says.
He’s eyeing end-of-year legislative vehicles — potentially tied to farm bill negotiations or other must-pass legislation — as opportunities to get SAWA across the finish line.
“There are vehicles at the end of the year where there’s a lot of bills that need to be moved,” Thompson says.
Meanwhile, Rollins continues doing what she can within USDA’s limited authority: advocating, coordinating with the Department of Labor and trying to stretch H-2A to cover some dairy needs.
But both are clear: The real solution requires Congress.
The Bottom Line
Two months after a fatal stabbing in Kansas exposed the legal limbo facing dairy’s workforce, the path forward is becoming clear, but it’s not easy.
Rollins said what many suspected: She can’t fix this alone. H-2A is controlled by Congress, and only Congress can create the year-round visa program dairy needs.
Thompson is trying to deliver that solution through SAWA — a bill with 60 co-sponsors, backing from over 600 organizations, and bipartisan potential.
But it’s stalled in the Judiciary Committee, caught in the same political gridlock that’s left dairy farmers surviving on a workforce with no legal pathway.
Dairy’s expansion across the U.S. — including Kansas up 13.9%, South Dakota up 8.4%, Texas adding 29,000 cows — will keep creating demand for workers the system can’t legally provide.
Thompson’s message to dairy farmers is clear: Help is coming, but it requires momentum, pressure and political will.
Rollins’ message is equally clear: USDA will do what it can, but the real solution is in Congress’ hands.
For dairy farmers trying to make payroll, manage operations and navigate an immigration system that treats their essential workers like fugitives, the question is whether Congress will act before the next crisis forces the conversation again.
“We need to make sure we have a great workforce,” Thompson says.
The workers are already here. They’re already feeding America. They’re already producing 79% of U.S. milk.
The question is whether Congress will give them, and the industry that depends on them, a legal way to keep doing it.
