Group Urges CBP to Reject Some Forced Labor Enforcement Recommendations From COAC
The Coalition for a Prosperous America is asking CBP to reject four recommendations from the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee's Forced Labor Working Group (see 2103160027). CPA says that the working group's advice to take a multi-agency approach on enforcing the ban on imports made with forced labor would limit enforcement actions. It says that asking the government to do more to help industry to minimize forced labor in supply chains “has it completely backwards, and shifts responsibility away from culpable parties.”
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The group said that it is self-serving for the COAC working group to ask CBP to design its policies aimed at preventing the importation of goods made with forced labor with an eye to minimizing cost to companies. That is “not an appropriate consideration for a law enforcement exercise of this nature,” CPA said.
And CPA said that the working group's argument that CBP should measure the success of forced labor enforcement by reduction in forced labor in the countries, rather than by the number of detentions or withhold release orders should be rejected because every time a product made with forced labor is denied entry into commerce, that is a success. They called that recommendation “morally reprehensible.”