CBP Hires More Personnel for Textile Enforcement

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced on February 16 that it has hired 45 additional personnel to bolster US textile law enforcement efforts and had seized $4 million worth of illegal textiles trying to make their way into the US. It added said that so far in February it had made 25 seizures for illegal transhipment and mis-description of merchandise to avoid quotas. In addition to continuing enforcement efforts, CBP says it is initiating special operations to detect and deter fraudulent activity. Last year, Congress appropriated an additional $4.75 million for CBP to increase textile enforcement efforts, including the hiring of additional personnel.

But in a programme the CBP described as “a two-week blitz targeting textile and apparel merchandise coming into the US by truck from Canada” , a CBP press release reports merely $56,000 worth of imports – or one container – were seized, although the operation supposedly uncovered “inaccurate marking, merchandise misclassification to avoid visa/quota restrictions, new clothing presented as used or worn, and a number of intellectual property violations”.

According to CBP, textiles entering the US account for 43% of all duties collected