By Neil Tracey

Copyright prospect

The following is a co-publication with The Capitol Forum, a premier subscription-based investigative reporting outlet covering complex M&A issues, consumer protection situations, and government contracts.

Customs and Border Patrol’s (CBP) policing of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) has fallen dramatically since the act was first implemented in 2022, according to publicly available statistics published by Customs and Border Patrol.

The UFLPA bans imports from China’s Xinjiang province, where Uyghurs and other minority groups are detained and forced to work in a network of 1,200 state-run internment camps, according to information published by the U.S. Department of State. The act also bans goods made by firms that are known to use forced labor.

CBP’s publicly available data showed that the number of shipments stopped under UFLPA was down 40 percent between March and July, compared with the same period last year. During 2023 and 2024, CBP typically stopped between 300 and 400 shipments a month. Currently, CBP is typically stopping between 100 and 200 shipments a month.

As of September 5, the CBP website showed that the agency had stopped only 14 shipments in July. Following a request for comment, the website was revised to show that 184 shipments had been stopped in July.

CBP did not reply to a request for comment on why the data was changed.

CBP does revise UFLPA enforcement statistics after they come out, although changes are typically not as significant as what happened in the July data.

Shawn Bhimani, a professor at Northeastern University who researches forced labor in supply chains, said that CBP is stopping fewer shipments related to UFLPA because the agency has prioritized tariff enforcement over UFLPA enforcement.

Experts also said that the low enforcement numbers come as the administration has made dramatic cuts both to government agencies responsible for combating forced labor and to grants awarded to nongovernmental organizations that partner with the U.S. government to enforce the UFLPA.

The CBP’s shift in enforcement is already leading to changes in corporate compliance and risk management.

“Companies know that enforcement is down. They’re allocating resources towards addressing tariff issues and are moving those resources away from dealing with compliance with human rights laws like the UFLPA,” said Laura Murphy, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who previously served as an adviser at the Department of Homeland Security, where she worked on UFLPA enforcement.

One sourcing director at a major consumer goods supplier also said that companies are deprioritizing eliminating forced labor from their supply chains and are instead focusing on tariff compliance.

“Compliance specialists who work in sectors that have not been targeted for UFLPA enforcement say that ‘they are not getting the same traction at the C-suite level as they used to,’ when executives thought [potential future enforcement in non-target sectors] was more likely,” said Murphy. She added that the individuals who work in UFLPA compliance are reporting this change in attitude due to the decrease in enforcement.

Priority Shifting

The decline in UFLPA enforcement comes as CBP customs officials have had to implement Trump’s tariff policy and have overwhelmingly been focused on finding tariff fraud, said the anonymous sourcing director.

From January 2023 to September 2024, the Biden administration stopped an average of 365 shipments a month. Since “Liberation Day” on April 2, the Trump administration has averaged 240 shipments stopped a month, including a jump-up in shipments stopped to 549 in June.

In April, May, and July, the Trump administration stopped fewer than 200 shipments. Before April, the CBP had not had a month when it stopped fewer than 200 shipments since the first month of UFLPA enforcement in June 2022.

The CBP stopped record numbers of shipments in December 2024, January 2025, and February 2025, stopping 1,319 shipments, 1,945 shipments, and 991 shipments, respectively. This spike in shipments came as companies increased imports into the U.S. to front-run tariffs.

“CBP is the global leader in forced labor enforcement. Though the number of forced labor enforcement actions—and the value of the products prevented from entering American commerce—will change over time as trade patterns change, in FY2025 to date, CBP has averaged 565 shipments detained per month, versus 383 per month in FY2024,” a CBP spokesperson told The Capitol Forum after the original publication of this article.

Reporting for fiscal year 2025 started in October 2024 and includes the spike in enforcement toward the end of the Biden administration.

Imports from China have been down following Trump’s April 2 announcement. However, as U.S. imports from China have fallen, they have remained level when looking at imports from China in addition to Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, India, and Mexico, places where the CBP routinely identifies products made with Uyghur forced labor, according to data from the U.S. International Trade Commission. This is likely because Chinese products have been routed through these countries to avoid tariffs, according to reporting from the Financial Times.

The decline in UFLPA policing is therefore likely not because there are fewer products made with forced labor coming into the United States.

Murphy noted that CBP must also navigate the end of an exemption known as “de minimis,” which will result in increased processing work for roughly one million shipments a day.

De minimis exempted packages under $800 from tariffs and provided for decreased reporting requirements for importers utilizing de minimis. As importers had limited reporting requirements for de minimis shipments, the exemption was used to import products made with forced labor into the United States. The end of de minimis increases the number of parcels that could contain products made with forced labor subject to stricter CBP scrutiny; the fact that the end of de minimis has not resulted in more shipments being stopped under UFLPA could show that CBP is focused on other priorities than UFLPA enforcement.

Trump ended the de minimis loophole for China and Hong Kong on May 2, and for all other countries on August 29.

In addition to the decrease in policing of shipments, the Trump administration has also not added any new companies to the UFLPA Entity List, which comprises companies found to participate in forced labor. Goods made by an entity on the list are prohibited from entering the United States. During 2024, updates were made to the list every two months on average.

“Paradox” Between Messaging and Action

The administration sent an update to Congress on UFLPA enforcement strategy on August 19, reiterating a commitment to enforcing the act and designating new strategic sectors for enforcement.

Forced labor enforcement advocates viewed the report as a promising sign, but the “paradox” between public pro-enforcement messaging and the decline in enforcement statistics has led to confusion and concern among advocates and researchers, said Bhimani. “The general messaging makes it seem like they are focused on continuing enforcement, and yet the numbers don’t reflect that.”

Staff on the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force, which helps write the report, are still working on the issue, said Murphy. Murphy suggested that the disparity between the report and the statistics may stem from the task force continuing its work on UFLPA while customs officials have shifted to other priorities.

The State Department told The Capitol Forum that adding new sectors to the priority UFLPA enforcement provides evidence that the administration is committed to robust enforcement against forced labor. However, Murphy noted that adding new sectors in the report means little practically if it is not backed up by enforcement actions.

Staff and Grant Cuts

Cuts at agencies involved in researching Uyghur forced labor threaten the long-term ability of the government to enforce the act. In July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was a vocal critic of forced labor and co-sponsored the UFLPA during his tenure in the Senate, cut roughly 80 percent of staff from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

The administration has also cut grants to civil society organizations that work to combat forced labor. In addition to the cuts, Secretary Rubio appointed a Uyghur genocide denier as a top official at the State Department.

The cuts could limit the government’s ability to monitor Uyghur forced labor and other human rights abuses.

“Robust enforcement can’t happen without resources to labor organizations, civil society organizations, academics and experts, the stakeholders that make that policy possible,” said Kelly Fay Rodríguez, who previously served as the special representative for international labor affairs under the Biden administration and has since co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice.

“The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office) continues to lead the State Department’s global efforts to combat human trafficking. We remain committed to implementing the UFLPA to prevent the importation of goods tainted with the forced labor of Uyghurs,” said a State Department spokesperson in response to a request for comment by The Capitol Forum.

However, cuts to grants for organizations and researchers that combat forced labor destroy trust that took “years” to build, said Rodriguez.

Outside organizations provide research and on-the-ground knowledge that inform government enforcement actions, according to Rodríguez.

Crippling the ability of the government to counter forced labor contradicts the administration’s stated priority of protecting American workers, said Rodríguez. “Anywhere there’s state-imposed forced labor, particularly to the extent to which it’s happening in China, it’s going to impact and undercut workers in global supply chains and certainly American workers. For an administration that claims to be making decisions for and on behalf of American workers, enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act should be a top priority.”