Matt Bush, FISM News
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A group of legislators is seeking answers on how Chinese companies that import fruit produced with Uyghur slave labor are bypassing customs and getting their products on American shelves, somehow skirting the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Last week, more than two dozen GOP members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Customs and Border Control Commissioner Chris Mangus and Andrea Gacki of the Treasury Department drawing their attention to the situation. The letter shows proof that some imports produced in China by forced labor, namely red jujube dates, are being sold in American grocery stores and asks critical questions about the enforcement of the UFLPA.
According to the CBP website, “The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) was signed into law by President Biden on December 23, 2021.” UFLPA enjoyed broad bipartisan support, passing the house 428-1 and the Senate by unanimous consent, and went into effect on June 21.
UFLPA “establishes a rebuttable presumption that the importation of any goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China, or produced by certain entities, is prohibited by Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and that such goods, wares, articles, and merchandise are not entitled to entry to the United States.”
In short, anything that is produced in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China is presumed to have been done so by the use of slave labor and is therefore banned from America.
“Customs and Border Patrol has been directed by Congress to ensure no goods made in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are permitted to enter American markets, and the presence of these red dates in American grocery stores is a clear failure by the Biden administration to enforce this law,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R.-Wis.), one of the letter’s signers, told the Free Beacon.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, of which Customs is a part, said that the department has taken swift and unprecedented action to enforce the act. A Treasury representative declined to comment.”
The 27 GOP lawmakers who sent the letter disagree and they are asking for answers.
The Xinjiang region of China is an important supplier of goods like cotton, tomatoes, and solar panel production materials. Because of this, the UFLPA has opened up some companies to legal risks and potentially higher costs or supply-chain interruptions.
Just last week an FISM article described the human rights violations that China was accused of committing. Many of those atrocities were committed against Uyghur Muslims in the XUAR, the same people that the UFLPA was introduced to protect.
The UFLPA is not a partisan issue, it is a moral issue that virtually everyone in Congress got behind back in December. However, when there is proof that the UFLPA is being bypassed, 27 lawmakers signed the letter, but none of them were Democrats.