Why It Matters
Kansas agriculture is facing a fresh threat as screwworm, a parasitic fly larvae capable of killing livestock, has been confirmed in U.S. animals for the first time in decades. The outbreak carries significant stakes for Kansas, where cattle production is among the largest in the country, and it has ignited a political dispute over who bears responsibility for the spread.
What Happened
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) used appearances on Newsmax and Bloomberg this week to lay blame for the screwworm’s arrival in the United States squarely on former President Joe Biden, arguing that the border policies of the previous administration allowed the pest to travel north. “This is another thing we can thank Joe Biden for — that when millions of people came out of Central America, they brought this screwworm with them,” Marshall said during the Newsmax broadcast.
Marshall, who previously represented Kansas’s 1st Congressional District before moving to the Senate, framed Biden’s departure from office roughly 18 months ago as the turning point that allowed the infestation to take hold. The screwworm has since been confirmed in livestock and at least one pet animal on U.S. soil.
The senator is currently seeking reelection in 2026, and his remarks drew swift pushback from political opponents and advocacy groups in Kansas.
Critics Cite DOGE Cuts to Agricultural Monitoring
The Kansas Coalition for Common Sense and Adam Hamilton’s Senate campaign both challenged Marshall’s framing, arguing it omits a critical piece of the story. Lauren Fitzgerald of the Kansas Coalition for Common Sense said Marshall supported the very federal spending reductions that weakened the government’s ability to detect and contain the pest. “Roger Marshall wants Kansans to believe he’s leading the fight against the screwworm, but he supported the very cuts that gutted USDA’s ability to protect Kansas ranchers,” Fitzgerald said.
At the center of that argument is the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, which carried out a round of federal workforce reductions last year. Approximately one-quarter of employees at the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service — the federal agency that serves as the country’s primary defense against livestock disease — were pushed out as a result of those cuts. Among the programs affected were those specifically tasked with monitoring screwworm activity in Mexico and Central America.
Marshall had publicly praised the DOGE cuts at the time they were implemented. He also participated in a July 2025 news conference alongside USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins to promote the National Farm Security Action Plan, an event that also included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, and then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
By the Numbers
- 4 million head of cattle in Kansas’s 1st Congressional District, the area Marshall once represented
- One-quarter of USDA APHIS staff eliminated through DOGE-ordered cuts
- 1 million head of cattle annually blocked from U.S. markets due to Mexico’s live cattle import ban, imposed in May
- 18 months since Biden left office, the timeframe Marshall cited in placing blame
Zoom Out
The screwworm threat is not new to North America. The U.S. previously eradicated the pest decades ago through a sustained government effort involving the mass release of sterile male screwworm flies — a biological control method still in use today. Mexico imposed a ban on live cattle shipments to the United States in May after screwworm was detected in its herds, a move that effectively removed roughly one million cattle from the annual U.S. import pipeline.
The dispute over APHIS funding mirrors broader debates playing out across agricultural states about the trade-offs of federal workforce and budget reductions on food and farm security infrastructure. Similar tensions between federal agency capacity and enforcement priorities have surfaced in other policy areas as the administration continues restructuring federal departments.
What’s Next
Marshall said in a January television interview in Wichita that federal agencies were actively working to prevent a domestic outbreak — statements that now face scrutiny given the confirmed cases. The USDA is expected to coordinate response efforts, but the capacity of APHIS to lead that response remains a point of contention given the staffing reductions. The Mexico cattle import ban remains in place, and its economic impact on U.S. ranchers is likely to grow the longer the outbreak persists.