A civil lawsuit was announced by Vikas Khanna, the Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, on Friday, February 28th, seeking the seizure of over 9,000 sets of boys’ clothing from China that were intercepted at the New York/Newark port. The reason cited was that the buttons on these garments contained excessive levels of lead, violating U.S. health and safety regulations.
According to the complaint, in March 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) conducted tests on the buttons of these children’s clothing and found that the lead content exceeded the legal standards, leading to their detention. Importer Angels New York US, Inc. had previously attempted to import children’s clothing with high levels of lead at least twice, indicating that their non-compliant behavior was not isolated.
Under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, any children’s product with lead levels exceeding one hundred parts per million (100 ppm) is classified as a “banned hazardous substance” and cannot be imported or sold.
The complaint detailed that Angels New York attempted to import these non-compliant children’s clothing from China on December 28, 2019. On March 11, 2020, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a violation notice to the company, and subsequently, CBP officially seized the goods on March 24 and sent a detention notice on April 21. Angels New York then sought administrative relief through legal means but was ultimately denied.
However, this was not the first time the company had illegally imported lead-containing children’s clothing. The complaint pointed out that in July and August of 2018, the CPSC had notified the company on two separate occasions that the lead content in the imported children’s clothing exceeded regulations, indicating multiple instances of non-compliance.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a lawsuit seeking court approval for the seizure of a total of 9,282 pieces of lead-contaminated children’s clothing to ensure the health and safety of American children.