California Apparel News

A shake-up of top customs officials in Los Angeles has import specialists worried that the government’s beefed-up security plans to defend the country’s borders may lead to delays in apparel imports at local ports.

The arrival of new officials more knowledgeable about security than tariff and quota regulations comes at a time when the Los Angeles customs staff is stretched thin at the ports, where they are trying to examine more cargo, particularly in search of apparel being illegally shipped from China.

On top of that, they are trying to keep the ports safe from terrorists’ bombs. “The ports and the airport are in a major enforcement mode,” said Los Angeles customs attorney Richard Wortman. “There is a mega staffing problem.”

Staffing problems are nothing new in the government, but now that quotas on 34 categories of Chinese apparel arein effect until the end of 2008, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) believes there are more schemes underfoot to ship Chinesemade garments to another country, slap on a label and declare it “made in Vietnam” or “made in the Philippines.”

In addition, there is a major thrust to protect U.S. intellectual property rights, putting customs on the alert to apprehend counterfeit items such as designer purses, jeans, bootlegged DVDs and technology goods.

Add to this a number of retirements and transfers and you have a recipe for a clogged customs system.

“They are very stretched,” noted Dan Meylor, customs administration manager at Carmichael International Service, a Los Angeles customs brokerage firm with a number of apparel clients. “This comes at a time when there is growth in trade. There are new trade agreements that have to be enforced, more focus on transshipments and intellectual property rights that are getting more emphasis from Congress.”

New top dogs

At the same time that customs staffing is stretched thin, many of the people who oversee the staffs at Los Angeles International Airport and the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach are new on the job.

The new appointees have backgrounds that are heavy on security and lean on customs and quota regulations.

On Oct. 16, Kevin McAleenan took over as U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s area port director at Los Angeles International Airport. He replaced Ana Hinojosa, who was transferred to become customs port director at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. McAleenan’s previous posting was as director of CBP’s Office of Anti-Terrorism.

At the seaports in Long Beach and Los Angeles, Todd Hoffman took over Oct. 1 as customs area port director, replacing longtime director Vera Adams, who was transferred to Washington, D.C., to become executive director of the trade enforcement and facilitation office. Hoffman’s previous experience as the director of CBP’s nonintrusive inspection division in Washington, D.C., has some people worried. Hoffman met with customs attorneys and brokers recently and told them that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have made customs all about enforcement and not about goods clearing quickly. “To anyone knowledgeable about customs, that means that goods will slow down,” Wortman said.

One of the worst staffing problems has occurred in the Department of Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures, which handles apparel cases that have had problems clearing customs.

Recently, customs brokers met with the department’s director, Robert Thierry, who noted that in the last six months his staff has declined by 60 percent due to transfers and one retirement. In addition, the caseload at the Department of Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures has mushroomed from 7,000 cases to 13,000 cases in the last three years, said Los Angeles customs attorney Elon Pollack.

“People are trying to think of creative ways to get their cases resolved,” said Pollack. He noted that some attorneys are suing the government to get the case out of customs’ hands and have it reviewed by a government attorney, who often releases the goods faster than dealing with the CBP.

Increased workload

Customs officials acknowledge there is a tight staffing problem at the local ports, even though the number of employees has doubled since Sept. 11, 2001, said Michael Fleming, CBP’s Los Angeles spokesman.

But that is only because customs is doing so much more in the last five years. The flow of cargo coming from Asia has mushroomed. The number of cargo containers arriving at the Port of Los Angeles jumped 55 percent between 2000 and 2005. It increased 36 percent during the same time period at the Port of Long Beach. Now, 43 percent of all containerized cargo entering the United States comes through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

In addition, every single container leaving the seaports by truck is examined by 85 radiation portal monitors stationed at the exit gates at 14 terminals. Approximately 77 percent of containers being transported from the seaports via train are now examined. That should reach 100 percent by the end of 2007, when more staff will have been trained and hired.

“Any manager would like to have more resources,” Fleming acknowledged. “But we have to be consistent with the [federal] budget and consistent with available resources that Washington allocates depending on the administration’s budget and Congress’ appropriation funding.”

To staff the radiation portal monitors, some inspectors are being pulled off their normal jobs. And to fill the inspectors’ jobs, some import specialists are being pulled away from their duties of reviewing documents and cargo manifests.

The import specialist teams, which often have five people, are organized by commodity, with experts in fields such as apparel, textiles, industrial machinery or pharmaceuticals. Their knowledge makes them familiar with regular importers and any irregularities that may occur.

In the apparel area, the teams are also organized by regions, meaning some teams are experts in reviewing apparel from China and Hong Kong. Other teams specialize in apparel from the Philippines or Central America.

In July, an import specialist at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport was pulled off the team that handles garments coming from China and Hong Kong to work in the intellectual property area. Another team member was also pulled away. “They have increased their workload on that team by 40 percent,” said Robert Krieger, president of Norman Krieger Inc., a Los Angeles customs broker and freight forwarder who has a large number of apparel clients. “There were five members on the team, and they have removed two.”

Also, the team that reviews apparel from the Philippines, an area where all garment imports are being scrutinized as customs cracks down on illegal transshipments, has been tapped to fill in for customs inspectors.

But import specialists are just as important for keeping the ports secure as the inspectors.

“Import specialists are on the front line in helping to encourage security, since they are familiar with the individual companies that import into the United States,” said Heather Litman, a Los Angeles customs attorney. “With all the focus on enforcement, they need additional ranks there.”