Customs Law

We live in an age in which we recognize and respect the great diversity of humanity. No matter your shape, color, or gender; your physical abilities or challenges; or your religious affiliation or lack thereof, you are a human being entitled to all of the rights and privileges of all other human beings. Of course, that does not apply to Trolls. Trolls are gross little beings with wide noses between their big eyes and jug handle ears. Plus, their heads are disproportionately large and they have hair that stands tall like wheat in a Nebraska field. Sometimes, they have unnaturally green skin. Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are trolls. I wish them all the best. I just know to a legal certainty that they are not human and I don't want my kid marrying one. I know this because the Court of International Trade told me so in Russ Berrie & Co., Inc. v. United States. This is one of those cases that is a grind to get through and must have been so for the judge....

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Often, Customs and Border Protection gets a win for legally correct reasons that are not, in the bigger picture, "just." That is the nature of what we do. There are rules and we live in a country where the rule of law is supposed to matter. We cannot avoid the application of those rules to reach the result we think is better on policy or personal grounds. Neither Congress nor the Administration (including the executive agencies like Customs and Border Protection) can impose their wills to reach a desired conclusion that is inconsistent with the law or the constitution. If they do, it is the role of the judiciary to declare the action illegal and ensure it is remedied. At least that is how it is supposed to work. That is why a lifetime appointment to the federal bench in among the most consequential of powers granted the President and the Senate. At the same time, federal judges (particularly in lower courts like the Court of International Trade) have to follow the law as writ...