DHS Secretary Asks CBP, HSI to Produce 'Comprehensive Enforcement Plan' for Textiles

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed CBP and Homeland Security Investigations to "provide him with a comprehensive enforcement action plan in 30 days" to protect domestic textile interests. The announcement, after a meeting with domestic textile mill owners who asked the government to step up free trade agreement enforcement and Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act apparel enforcement and to end de minimis sales, also says that report should include "a determination whether current trade law provides adequate authorities to solve the core issues."

National Council of Textile Organizations CEO Kim Glas hailed the department's response to the meeting. "The industry has lost eight plants in three months. Plants that survived the Great Depression, the Great Recession and COVID aren’t surviving the economic environment due to demand destruction exacerbated by unfair trade practices," she said.

The DHS readout of the meeting said that CBP has already been increasing enforcement for textiles, including through isotopic testing, physical inspection, textile production verification visits and audits. "And, as chair of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force, DHS continues to work in collaboration with other agencies and the private sector to expand the UFLPA Entity List to publicly name and hold accountable bad actors that use or facilitate forced labor," the readout said.

“DHS will use all the tools at its disposal, including identifying suspicious transshipment practices, publicly identifying bad actors, isotopic testing, random parcel inspections, and other law enforcement efforts, in order to protect the integrity of our markets, hold perpetrators accountable, and safeguard the American textile industry,” Mayorkas said.