46 USC § 60501 - Vessels allowed to import | Title 46 - Shipping | U.S. Code

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 113-99. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

(a) In General.— Except as otherwise provided by treaty, goods may be imported into the United States from a foreign port or place only in—

(1) a vessel of the United States; or

(2) a foreign vessel owned only by citizens or subjects of the country—

(A) in which the goods are grown, produced, or manufactured; or

(B) from which the goods can only be, or most usually are, first shipped for transportation.

(b) Exception for Vessels of Countries Not Maintaining Similar Restrictions.— Subsection (a) does not apply to a vessel of a foreign country that does not maintain a similar restriction against United States documented vessels.

(c) Exception for Vessels Becoming Documented.— Subsection (a) does not apply to a vessel that—

(1) is owned only by citizens of the United States; and

(2) after entering a port of the United States, becomes documented as a vessel of the United States before leaving that port.

(d) Seizure and Forfeiture.— If goods are imported in violation of this section, the goods and the vessel in which they are imported, along with its equipment and other cargo, may be seized by and forfeited to the United States Government.

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(a) In General.— Except as otherwise provided by treaty, goods may be imported into the United States from a foreign port or place only in—

(1) a vessel of the United States; or

(2) a foreign vessel owned only by citizens or subjects of the country—

(A) in which the goods are grown, produced, or manufactured; or

(B) from which the goods can only be, or most usually are, first shipped for transportation.

(b) Exception for Vessels of Countries Not Maintaining Similar Restrictions.— Subsection (a) does not apply to a vessel of a foreign country that does not maintain a similar restriction against United States documented vessels.

(c) Exception for Vessels Becoming Documented.— Subsection (a) does not apply to a vessel that—

(1) is owned only by citizens of the United States; and

(2) after entering a port of the United States, becomes documented as a vessel of the United States before leaving that port.

(d) Seizure and Forfeiture.— If goods are imported in violation of this section, the goods and the vessel in which they are imported, along with its equipment and other cargo, may be seized by and forfeited to the United States Government.

Source

(Pub. L. 109–304, § 9(b),Oct. 6, 2006, 120 Stat. 1679.)

Historical and Revision Notes
Revised Section	Source (U.S. Code)	Source (Statutes at Large)
60501(a)
19:130 (1st sentence).
Oct. 3, 1913, ch. 16, § IV(J)(2), (3), 38 Stat. 196; Mar. 15, 1915, ch. 171, § 1, 38 Stat. 1193; Pub. L. 103–182, title VI, § 689(a)(2), Dec. 8, 1993, 107 Stat. 2222.
60501(b)
19:131 (words before “nor”).
60501(c)
19:131 (words beginning with “nor”).
60501(d)
19:130 (last sentence related to 19:130).

In this section, the word “goods” is substituted for “goods, wares, or merchandise” to eliminate unnecessary words.

In subsection (a)(2), before subparagraph (A), the words “owned only by” are substituted for “truly and wholly belong to” for consistency in the revised title.

In subsection (b), the words “or goods, wares, or merchandise imported in vessels” are omitted as unnecessary because of the wording of subsection (a) of the revised section. The word “restriction” is substituted for “regulation” as being more appropriate.

Subsection (d) is substituted for “All goods, wares, or merchandise imported contrary to this section or section 128 of this title, and the vessel wherein the same shall be imported, together with her cargo, tackle, apparel, and furniture, shall be forfeited to the United States; and such goods, wares, or merchandise, ship, or vessel, and cargo shall be liable to be seized, prosecuted, and condemned in like manner, and under the same regulations, restrictions, and provisions as have been heretofore established for the recovery, collection, distribution, and remission of forfeitures to the United States by the several revenue laws” to eliminate unnecessary words.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Friday, May 3, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

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General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

46 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

46 USC § 60501 - Vessels allowed to import

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