Is Customs Working Too Hard?

Look at this story.

The thing about having a job to do as a professional is the ability to exercise discretion. Digging ditches is an honorable profession. But ditch diggers rarely get to decide how deep or wide to dig. They follow directions and do what is required for the particular job. It is left to some engineer to determine what this particular ditch needs to look like.

To some extent the same goes for Customs and Border Protection. There are times when the "by the book" or "just following procedure" approach does not make sense. One example is the story noted above where a fire engine from Quebec was trying to enter New York to keep a building from burning down. CBP ran the vehicle and the firefighters through the normal process and held the truck up for 8 minutes. Apparently, one of the firefighters had a criminal record. OK, that makes sense if he was in a Winnebago with a bunch of frat boys and a keg. But this was a firetruck responding to a fire.

I'm sure CBP is not happy with this either and I am not trying to pile on. But, I think some people in CBP may have lost site of when and how to exercise discretion. That is a very important skill for government employees, particularly law enforcement officials. In some ways, it separates good government from a bureaucratic mess.

UPDATE:

I was going to leave this alone, but it is getting a lot of press coverage. Bottom line is that an ambulance carrying a cardiac patient to a hospital in Detroit from Windson was also stopped at the border. The cause seems to have been a computer generated requirement for a more intensive review. I understand that there is an international border involved and that an ambulance (particularly a private one) might be used as a ruse to get bad guys into the country, but there should be a way to avoid treating an ambulance with lights and sirens going and a nearly dead guy in the back the same as a bus of conventioneers returning from the Windsor Ballet.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ruling of the Week 2015.8: Old Jersey and Pitcairn Island

Image
For today's ROTW, I set out looking for a ruling dealing with some far off and preferably warm location. Turns out that, with the exception of coastwise transit issues, there are no Customs and Border Protection rulings involving Pitcairn Island or any of several Pacific Ocean microstates including Tuvalu , Niue , and Kiribati . Pitcairn Island What I did find is an interesting question about the country of origin marking for products of the Bailiwick of Jersey Island, Channel Islands. The ruling is HQ 561938 (Mar. 18, 2002). For those of you who may not know, Jersey is an island off the coast of Normandy, France. It is an independent international actor and not part of the U.K. although the U.K. is responsible for its defense and external relations. Also, the Queen is the Head of State in her capacity as "the Crown in Right of Jersey." It is, according to the U.S. Department of State, a " Crown Dependency " along with the Isle of Man and the Bailiwick o...
Read more

CAFC Decision in Double Invoicing Case

The Federal Circuit has issued a decision on the merits in United States v. Inn Foods, Inc.  There had been a previous decision on jurisdiction, which was followed by a trial at the Court of International Trade and then this appeal on the substance. The initial issue is whether Inn Foods' invoicing practice amounts to fraud.  Inn Foods had been receiving an invoice from growers in Mexico that had a relatively low sales prices on it.  Subsequent to entry, Inn Foods created a second invoice at something more similar to market value, retaining the original invoice number, and paid at that higher amount.   Superficially, this looks like a standard-issue double-invoicing scheme.  But, in the age of reconciliation, is it really more like a provisional pricing mechanism?  It might have been possible to make that argument had Inn Foods adjusted its entries accordingly.  It didn't and the loss of revenue was approximately $624,000.  Based on testimony and evidence indicating both knowl...
Read more

Ninestar and UFLPA Exhaustion

Image
Exhaustion is a key doctrine in administrative law. When applicable, it requires that a party unhappy with an agency’s determination complete the administrative appeal process before turning to the courts for judicial review. Requiring exhaustion typically promotes judicial efficiency by ensuring that disputes are resolved at the agency and, if they are not, that there is a complete record of the agency process. Exhaustion also ensures that the judiciary respects the executive agencies and their expertise.  There are, on the other hand, times when the courts will find that exhaustion is not necessary or appropriate. Such is the case in  Ninestar Corporation et al. v. United States  et al., a decision of the U.S. Court of International Trade.  Ninestar is also interesting because it is one of the first cases in the CIT involving the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, known as UFLPA. In my hiatus from active blogging, I missed the rise of UFLPA as a major compliance t...
Read more