Imports Detained for Forced Labor Can Enter Bonded Warehouse but Not FTZ, CBP Says

Importers whose cargo is detained by CBP for forced labor concerns may request to move the cargo to a customs bonded warehouse, but the cargo may not move into a Foreign-Trade Zone for storage, CBP said in an Aug. 3 CSMS message.

CBP said the director of the port where the cargo is detained has the authority to approve or deny requests to move the shipment into the bonded warehouse. If the request is approved, the importer or their authorized filers can “update the entry type from a formal entry (e.g. Entry Type 01) to a bonded warehouse entry (Entry Type 21),” the message said. If the request is denied, “no changes should be made to the original entry.”

Importers should contact the detaining port of entry with questions related to the “submission of movement of cargo” and can contact CBP’s FTZ program at cscwarehousing@cbp.dhs.gov with questions related to FTZs. Other questions on this guidance should be directed to the Forced Labor Division at forcedlabor@cbp.dhs.gov.

The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee’s Forced Labor Working Group last year asked CBP to provide more guidance on FTZs and goods detained for forced labor concerns (see 2206170047). Among the working group's suggestions was that CBP issue guidance for importers on “how to enter goods into a FTZ for goods detained subject” to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act “pending release through an exclusion being granted, the rebuttal of the presumption, or for export, and the establishment of mechanisms to prevent detained goods from being released through the weekly entry process.”