The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is increasingly stopping and examining imported shipments of food attempting to enter the United States. Often, the FDA does not allow the food to enter the United States by declaring it to be misbranded or adulterated. Typically, refused food is then either destroyed or exported from the United States. There is another option called "reconditioning".
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a February 22, 2011 60-Day Notice and Request for Comments regarding its use of a "Notice of Detention". I know, a lot of you are saying to yourselves, "When did CBP starting using Notices of Detention," and my response to you is "That's a darn good question!"
Have you heard of the Global Entry program operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)? If you are one of the 100,000 U.S. citizens or permanent residents who are members, then congratulations to you. If you are one of the millions of international travelers who do not like to wait in long lines at U.S. Customs when arriving at an airport in the United States after a long intercontinental flight, I have got a deal for you.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seizes and forfeits hundreds of millions of dollars of merchandise every year. The IRS, DEA, Postal Service, and other Federal agencies also have the legal authority to seized and forfeit merchandise that were allegedly used illegally or were proceeds of alleged illegal activity, but CBP administrative and judicial forfeiture proceedures are unique. The answer is that seizes by CBP typically are not included within the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA).
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is responsible for regulating and managing the export and sale of paddlefish roe (caviar). To obtain a paddlefish roe export permit, an applicant must establish that it properly harvested the roe, and that its export would not undermine the survival of the species. But what happens when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has had the application for months, and has taken no action on it?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued notices to foreign food facilities registered with the FDA that it will conduct an inspection of those facilities between October 1, 2010 and September 30, 2011. Foreign food facilities that manufacturer, process, pack, hold, and ship food to the United States must have registered with the FDA pursuant to the Bioterrorism Act. Foreign food facilities that do not properly respond to the FDA notices will result in a detention of any food that arrives in the United States from those canceled facilities.
The annual conference of the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) just concluded in San Antonio, Texas. Several prominent speakers from U.S. Customs, the Federal Maritime Commission, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security discussed new policies and procedures that every customs broker and international freight forwarder should use to serve their import and export clients.
My friends tell me one of their favorite activities in China is to buy counterfeit items such as Gucci handbags or Mont Blanc pens. They do worry about U.S. Customs and Border Protection (U.S. Customs) officers looking through their luggage upon arrival at an airport in the United States, seizing the counterfeit items, and fining them. The truth is that U.S. Customs allows the importation of counterfeit merchandise, but closely follow the rules as I explain them to you now.
Every day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the airports, seaports, and other border crossings, stop, examine, detain, and seize merchandise from both travelers and commercial cargo importers and exporters. The process of getting back your property can be a harrowing one fraught with bureaucratic delays. There is, fortunately, a set of rules that U.S. Customs must follow, and knowing those rules will give you an advantage.
When the International Olympic Committee selected Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, over Chicago, to host the Summer Olympics in 2016, I was surprised and disappointed. When the media started to report that one of the factors that led the Committee members to not vote in favor of the United States was our security policy toward international visitors, I was intrigued. When I read that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had previously promised the Committee that the White House would set up a special office to oversee a host of federal agencies to make sure the customs and immigration process would be streamlined so athletes and other visitors would have no trouble getting to the games, then I realized something was seriously wrong.