Senator Ron Johnson hopes to resurrect a plan to help farms get the employees they need, but he says there are other concerns to address first. According to the Associated Press, immigration was the second most important issue heading into the election, trailing only the economy in the poll of more than 110,000 voters. One of President-elect Donald Trump's promises was to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants as a part of a larger goal to secure the southern border. The National Milk Producers Federation says that immigrant labor accounts for 51 percent of all dairy labor, helping produce approximately 79 percent of the country's milk supply.  Some dairy farmers told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that they fear deportations could upend the industry because of the importance of immigrant labor to area farms. Johnson is sympathetic to those concerns, adding that farmers have suffered from a workforce shortage similar to manufacturing since he joined the Senate in 2010. He points to what he calls the failures of the past four years, saying that they have a mess they must clean up before addressing other immigration reform measures.

He states he would be happy to reintroduce legislation that would allow the state to set up state-based non-immigrant visa programs that would allow migrants to take on jobs in fields like agriculture that suffer from workforce shortage issues. In 2017, agricultural groups applauded the legislation because, unlike the federal H-2A program, it would have allowed visas for year-round work, which is found in the dairy industry.