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A year following the commencement of the UFPLA (Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act) in June 2022, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has apprehended nearly 4,300 shipments subject to UFLPA review or enforcement actions, with a combined value exceeding $1.3 billion. According to the agency’s data, this represents a significant increase compared to the $485 million…

On June 28, 2023, Mike Gallagher (R-WI) , Chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and James Comer (R-KY), Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, jointly sent a formal letter addressed to USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy requesting data on Chinese-origin mail and shipments entering the United States. The letter also…

On May 3, 2023, Senators Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, introduced the ‘‘Country of Origin Labeling Online Act’’ or the ‘‘COOL Online Act’’ in an attempt to require origin and location disclosure for new products of foreign origin offered for sale on the internet. Following previous unsuccessful attempts to pass…

After more than 6 months since the UFLPA went into effect in June 2022, CBP released its UFLPA Statistics Dashboard. The UFLPA Dashboard provides users a snapshot of the number of shipments that have been subjected to UFLPA-related reviews and enforcement actions. Per CBP, the Dashboard contains “data related to enforcement of the UFLPA,”…

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released new guidance following the announcement of new 200% tariffs on Russian aluminum.  CBP’s guidance outlines new reporting requirements for all imports of aluminum and aluminum derivative products, regardless of the country of origin.

The new reporting requirements follow the issuance of Presidential Proclamation 10522.  Under Proclamation 10522, any…

In Island Industries Inc. v. Sigma Corp., the Ninth Circuit is set to address whether federal district courts have subject matter jurisdiction over customs fraud cases in actions initiated under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act (“FCA”). The FCA allows private parties (“relators”) to file suits on behalf of the government…

The U.S. Court of International Trade (“CIT”) issued a final opinion in Virtus Nutrition LLC’s (“Virtus”) challenge to Customs and Border Protection’s (“CBP”) detention of Malaysian palm oil imports, rejecting Vitrus’ request that the CIT confirm the importer’s right to re-export the shipment.  Please see link to case [here].      

CBP detained the shipment…

On Saturday, November 12, 2022, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Chris Magnus, resigned following tensions between Magnus and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over how to handle increasing numbers of migrant people at the southern border. DHS officials have reported that Secretary Mayorkas informed Magnus on Wednesday that he should either…

On Monday, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives proposed a bipartisan bill aimed at providing relief to U.S. importers who paid tariffs on goods that would have been eligible for preferential treatment under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which expired on December 31, 2020. This bill would retroactively apply preferential treatment to products…