On December 13, 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar discussed air cargo security and provided details on the Air Cargo Advance Screening pilot (ACAS) to participants at the American Association of Airport Executives Aviation Security Summit. Aguilar stated that in the first half-year of the ACAS program, the pilot screened more than two million U.S.-bound packages before they were loaded on an aircraft. He said the program not only improves supply-chain security, but also reduces the number of inspections and speeds up the overall process.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted three lists of total illegal alien apprehensions by fiscal year by the U.S. Border Patrol, through fiscal year 2010. The lists contain FY 2010 data for apprehensions (1) nationwide from 1925 - 2010 (here), (2) along the nine southwest border sectors from 1960 - 2010 (here), and (3) by sector and border area ((i) total, (ii) only Mexico, and (iii) other than Mexico) from 1999 - 2010 (here).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have issued the following news releases related to commercial trade and related issues:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a memorandum announcing that the 2012 tariff rate quota for beef provided for in HTS Chapter 2, Additional U.S. Note 3 will open on January 3, 2012 with the below-listed countries having the following low-duty access amounts:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has released its year-end data on fiscal year 2011 border enforcement and management efforts. The following are highlights of CBP's efforts in FY 2011:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is extending the comment period to January 9, 2012, on an information collection on the Entry and Manifest of Merchandise Free of Duty, Carrier's Certificate and Release (CBP Form 7523). CBP proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection with no change to the burden hours or to the information collected.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an overview and a list of frequently asked questions and answers on its Industry Integration Centers, which were formerly referred to as Centers for Excellence and Expertise (CEE). Among other things, CBP provides information on who can participate in these Centers, how these Centers will affect the processing of shipments, and what benefits they provide.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection states that in 2011 it partnered with customs agencies from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to target counterfeit pharmaceuticals in mail and express carrier shipments. This enforcement partnership, dubbed Operation APEC, resulted in enforcement actions against more than 1,200 shipments of illegal pharmaceuticals. Operation APEC started in March and ran through November which included a 10 day enforcement operation at select express carrier and international mail facilities in June and July.

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of December 9, 2011, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. These messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a December 9, 2011 press release on the ACE Simplified Entry test and the nine brokers selected to participate, along with some of the brokers' clients that were selected too. An associated fact sheet dated August 2011 (here) is provided as a link, along with a July 2011 trade outreach seminar on SE (here) is available.