PRIA, Government Policy, Made Personal

Summary

The President can move the customs office to a secure spot in the same district—on land, on a ship, or at sea—when duties cannot be collected in the usual way. The customs collector must live there and hold ships and cargo until the required duties are paid in cash. If the owner or master wants to go to another district’s port, the master may change the manifest and the collector must give a written permit. The Treasury Secretary, with the President's OK, must make rules for enforcing duties on board.

Title 50, §219

War and National Defense, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

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 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.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

section 218 of this title, referred to in text, was repealed by Pub. L. 89–554, § 8(a), Sept. 6, 1966, 80 Stat. 632. Codification R.S. § 5315 derived from acts July 13, 1861, ch. 3, § 2, 12 Stat. 256; Mar. 3, 1875, ch. 136, § 2, 18 Stat. 469.

Executive Documents

Transfer of Functions

All offices of collector of customs, comptroller of customs, surveyor of customs, and appraiser of merchandise of the Bureau of Customs of Department of the Treasury to which appointments were required to be made by President with advice and consent of Senate ordered abolished, with such offices to be terminated not later than Dec. 31, 1966, by Reorg. Plan No. 1, of 1965, eff.

May 25, 1965, 30 F.R. 7035, 79 Stat. 1317, set out in the Appendix to Title 5, Government Organization and Employees. All functions of offices eliminated were already vested in Secretary of the Treasury by Reorg. Plan No. 26 of 1950, eff.

July 31, 1950, 15 F.R. 4935, 64 Stat. 1280, set out in the Appendix to Title 5.

§219 Removal of Customhouse and Detention of Vessels Thereat