U.S. Department of Agriculture argues it’s not required to enforce Animal Welfare Act

Less than two weeks after the head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the agency was stepping up enforcement of the federal Animal Welfare Act, the USDA’s lawyers are arguing in court that it’s not required to enforce that law.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals filed a lawsuit against the USDA in September 2024, challenging its past decisions to license three Iowa dog breeders — Steve Kruse, Brian Lichirie and Wuanita Swedlund.

The lawsuit, which is still pending, alleges the USDA has pursued an informal policy of failing to enforce the federal Animal Welfare Act. As evidence, the ASPCA cites the USDA’s decision to repeatedly renew Kruse’s license, despite a history of animal-welfare violations, and by licensing two of his associates, Lichirie and Swedlund.

As a result, the ASPCA claims, hundreds of Kruse’s dogs have cycled through Kruse’s associates as part of a puppy-laundering scheme intended to conceal the role Kruse plays in supplying puppies to out-of-state retailers.

More recently, the ASPCA has noted in court filings that within days of Kruse’s license being canceled in September 2025, the USDA approved a license for another individual, Christine Snakenberg, at 2345 Highway 16 in West Point — the same address as Kruse’s Stonehenge Kennels, which Kruse still owned at the time.

All of that, the ASPCA contends, points to the USDA’s informal policy of refusing to enforce the Animal Welfare Act.

In response to those allegations, the USDA is arguing that the agency is not required to enforce the law — stating that none of the enforcement provisions of the Animal Welfare Act are mandatory, and that decisions on enforcement are entirely at the agency’s own discretion.

The USDA also argues that nothing in the ASPCA’s lawsuit “suggests that this imagined ‘policy’ of non-enforcement even exists.”

Rollins: ‘Those days are over.’

On Oct. 6, 2026, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins appeared at the Animal Rescue League of Iowa and publicly announced the agency was stepping up its enforcement efforts related to inspections — called “surveys” by the agency — and penalties.

“This USDA, over the last year and a half, is very different than prior USDAs,” Rollins said. “We have really stepped up enforcement … The prior USDAs, they would come in, they’d survey, they may fine, and then they would leave. But those days are over. We are now in the active process of shutting down these puppy mills.”

In court, the USDA is arguing that the ASPCA’s lawsuit centers on four Iowa breeders — Kruse, Swedlund, Lichirie and Snakenberg. The first three have voluntarily surrendered their licenses or allowed them to expire, the USDA alleges, and Snakenberg fits the agency’s “regulatory criteria for licensure.” Because of that, the USDA argues, the lawsuit should be dismissed as moot.

The ASPCA’s lawsuit cites the licensing of Snakenberg as evidence that the USDA’s “ongoing policy of non-enforcement persists to this day,” and so the lawsuit should not be dismissed as moot.

Swedlund, whose USDA license expired on July 14, 2026, has since been criminally charged with 34 counts of animal neglect. She has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. A trial is now scheduled for Dec. 18, 2026.

As the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported in 2024, a USDA inspector visited a dog-breeding kennel in the Van Buren County town of Cantril in late 2023. The business was located on property owned by Kruse but operating under a license held by Swedlund. During the inspection, USDA officials reported six puppies at the facility appeared to have frozen to death.

USDA records showing that in 2025 and 2026, Swedlund repeatedly denied federal inspectors access to her Van Buren County facilities.

On June 25, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice obtained a temporary restraining order against Swedlund and then inspected her business, cataloging 20 violations. A few days later, the Van Buren County sheriff seized Swedlund’s 32 dogs, which led to the filing of the criminal charges.