According to this report from the Government Account Office, Customs not only has to deal with illegal drugs, illegal aliens, and possible shipments of illegal weapons into the U.S., but also illegal shipments of texttiles. Below is an excerpt of the report:
To identify potential illegal textile transshipments, CBP uses a targeting process that relies on analyzing available trade data to focus limited inspection and enforcement resources on the most high-risk activity. In 2002, CBP targeted about 2,500 textile shipments out of more than 3 million processed, or less than 0.01 percent.Given resource constraints at CBP ports, CBP’s textile review process for preventing illegal textile transshipment increasingly depends on information from foreign factory visits that CBP conducts, based on the targeting results. However, CBP’s foreign factory visit reports are not always finalized and provided to ports, other agencies, or the foreign governments for timely follow-up. Further, after the global textile quotas end in 2005, CBP will lose its authority to conduct foreign factory visits in former quota countries. U.S. overseas Attaché offices and cooperative efforts by foreign governments can supplement information provided to the ports.
Under CBP’s in-bond system, foreign textiles and apparel can travel through the United States before formally entering U.S. commerce or being exported to a foreign country. However, weak internal controls in this system enable cargo to be illegally diverted from its supposed destination, thus circumventing quota restrictions and payment of duties. Moreover, CBP’s penalties do not deter in-bond diversion. Bond amounts can be set considerably lower than the value of the cargo, and violators may not view the low payments as a deterrent against diverting their cargo.
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