Does Customs and Border Protection Have the Legal Authority to Seize Merchandise Made With Forced Uyghur Labor?

China Shipping Line container ship at the Port of Los Angeles. (Corey Seeman, https://www.flickr.com/photos/cseeman/11102240324, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)

Does U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have the legal authority to seize imported goods that were made with forced Uyghur labor?

Both CBP and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have asserted that CBP will use seizure and forfeiture as tools for enforcing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), a trade law enacted in 2021 to ban the importation of goods made wholly or in part in China with forced Uyghur labor. On careful review, the assertion does not hold up. U.S. customs law does not provide CBP any clear legal basis for seizing and forfeiting imported goods made with forced Uyghur labor.

The absence of seizure authority does not mean that importing goods made with forced Uyghur labor is a risk-free proposition. A company that attempts to import such goods might be subject to civil penalties imposed by CBP, or could even face the prospect of criminal liability, depending on the circumstances of importation. But when it comes to th

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