50 U.S.C. § 219 — Removal of customhouse and detention of vessels thereat

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in plain englishAI-generated · not legal advice

If duties can't be collected normally at a port, the President may move the customhouse elsewhere. The collector must then hold all ships and cargo there until duties are paid in cash. A ship's owner may instead redirect to a port with no such problems.

This section applies when, at a port of entry, import duties can't be collected the normal way — or through the alternative method in section 218 of this title — for the reason described in section 218. In that case, the President can order the customhouse for that district set up somewhere secure instead: on land, aboard a vessel in the district, or at sea near the coast. The collector then works from that location, on land or aboard ship as the case may be. The collector must detain every vessel and cargo arriving in or approaching the district, keeping them until the duties owed on the vessel and cargo are paid in cash. If the owner or consignee of a detained ship's cargo — or the ship's master — wants to instead enter a port in a different district that has no such problem, the master can change the vessel's declared destination on the ship's manifest. The collector will then give the master written permission to proceed to that other port. The Secretary of the Treasury, with the President's approval, must issue rules for enforcing, aboard ship, whatever duty-assessment and collection laws are necessary and workable under these circumstances.

the actual law source: uscode.house.gov ↗public domain

Whenever, at any port of entry, the duties on imports cannot, in the judgment of the President, be collected in the ordinary way, or by the course provided in section 218 1 of this title, by reason of the cause mentioned in said section, he may direct that the customhouse for the district be established in any secure place within the district, either on land or on board any vessel in the district, or at sea near the coast; and in such case the collector shall reside at such place, or on shipboard, as the case may be, and there detain all vessels and cargoes arriving within or approaching the district, until the duties imposed by law on such vessels and their cargoes are paid in cash. But if the owner or consignee of the cargo on board any vessel thus detained, or the master of the vessel, desires to enter a port of entry in any other district where no such obstructions to the execution of the laws exist, the master may be permitted so to change the destination of the vessel and cargo in his manifest; whereupon the collector shall deliver him a written permit to proceed to the port so designated. And the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President, shall make proper regulations for the enforcement on shipboard of such provisions of the laws regulating the assessment and collection of duties as in his judgment may be necessary and practicable.

Source credit: (R.S. § 5315.)

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