US Treaty With Yakama Tribe Doesn't Exempt Imports From Customs Duties, CBP Says

Goods imported by members of the Yakama tribe from Canada are not exempt from customs duties despite an 1855 treaty between the U.S. and the Yakama Nation of Native Americans, CBP said in a Nov. 12 ruling. JC Company requested that CBP issue a binding ruling on whether that treaty “exempts the Yakamas from payment of customs duties on merchandise when they import into Washington State by ground from Canada.” As part of the request, the company pointed to a Supreme Court decision this year that affirmed that the “right to travel” provision of the treaty pre-empted a conflicting state law that involved importing fuel from Oregon to Washington state.

Previous court decisions have said that treaties are considered to be "on the same footing" as federal law, CBP said. That means that, unlike that Supreme Court case, the customs ruling involves two federal laws, rather than a federal and state law, CBP said. "Congress has the power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes," the agency said. "Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Yakama Treaty and customs statutes have the same standing under the law. As an administrative agency, we have no authority to declare an enactment of Congress to be unconstitutional."

The "Federal courts have traced the history of the Yakama Treaty and statutory tariff laws enacted by Congress, and have found that Native Americans are not exempt from customs duties," CBP said. The treaty's "right to travel" provision gives Yakamas the right to use public highways "in common" with U.S. citizens, but the scope of that right has been the litigated over in multiple venues. The lack of "express exemptive language" limits how far the provision applies in terms of Yakama paying taxes and fees, a federal court ruled in 2002, CBP said.

Here,"the Yakamas are subject to customs duties and fees because there is neither a treaty exemption nor a federal statutory exemption currently in place," CBP said in its ruling. The ruling had been uploaded onto CBP's database on Nov. 25 (see 1911250017), but is now not longer available there.