RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- University and nongovernmental organization reports on forced labor are not necessarily taken at face value, a CBP official said Oct. 27 at the Pacific Coast Council's Western Cargo Conference., known as Wesccon. With any report, an "import specialist or an analyst" has to make the "ultimate decision," Eric Choy, CBP executive director of trade remedy law enforcement, said.
Despite the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which should put a damper on exports in supply chains of goods that are destined for the U.S., exports from Xinjiang are climbing sharply, by nearly 50%, according to a recent report in the South China Morning Post.
A research paper says that prison camps for Uyghurs were phased out in 2019, and now, labor transfers have become the main mechanism of forced labor, usually for rural people who were never imprisoned. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act tries to address labor transfers outside of Xinjiang by noting that they, too, are presumed to be forced labor, but the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force has identified few companies or facilities in Eastern China that have employed Muslim minority workers.
The co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China called on DHS to report on actions it has taken to address forced labor in seafood supply chains, noting that the agency already had been informed of the contents of a recent article detailing forced labor in Chinese seafood processing operations before it was published.
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CBP in September identified 259 shipments valued at more than $102 million for further examination based on the suspected use of forced labor, including goods subject to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and withhold release orders, the agency said in its most recent operational statistics update. The value of those shipments is up from August, when CBP identified 320 shipments worth more than $68 million (see 2309250036). Also in September, CBP seized 1,658 shipments that contained counterfeit goods valued at more than $280 million if the items had been genuine, the agency said.
A House subcommittee hearing on the government's implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act zoomed in on de minimis shipments, low incidence of cotton isotopic testing and the slow pace of adding businesses to the UFLPA Entity List, which captures companies that accept labor transfers outside of Xinjiang.
Of more than 5,000 shipments stopped by CBP under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, CBP has finished its analysis on about 4,600. And for nearly half, or 47%, importers were able to prove there was no link to Xinjiang in their supply chains, said Brian Hoxie, director of CBP's forced labor division.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is one of the most powerful laws, "in what it's been able to achieve in such a short time," said Howard Mendelsohn, chief client officer for Kharon, a risk intelligence service provider. It was implemented so quickly that almost $2 billion worth of imports has been detained, at least temporarily.
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