Department of Homeland Security Sanctions Seafood Company for Use of Uyghur Forced Labor

By Austin Brush and Ian Urbina

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today that it has added a large Chinese seafood company called Shandong Meijia Group to a federal list that prohibits further imports to the U.S. due to the company’s proven ties to the use of state-sponsored forced labor. The so-called “Entity List” is connected to a federal law called the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). 

The federal action is one of the most aggressive and consequential moves that U.S. government officials can take against a company. Seafood products tied to Meijia can only be imported into the U.S. in the future if Customs and Border Protection (CBP) determines that the goods were not produced with forced labor.

The goal of adding a company to the list is also to make it easier for other companies to ensure that they are not purchasing seafood from entities sourcing products from Xinjiang or participating in government-sponsored labor transfer programs to receive individuals from persecuted groups, including Uyghurs, out of Xinjiang for labor at its factory elsewhere in China.

The Meijia Group is a major seafood processing company based in Shandong Province in China. The company exports frozen seafood and vegetables globally, including to the United States, the European Union, and South Korea. American customers of seafood products from the Meijia Group include suppliers to supermarket chains like HMART Group, which is the largest Asian supermarket chain in the U.S., according to its website. In Canada, Meijia customers include suppliers to subsidiaries of the major supermarket chain Loblaws.

In the United Kingdom, Meijia's customers include the supermarket chain Iceland and distributors such as Fastnet Fish and Westbridge Foods Ltd, according to an archived version of their customer list on their website. Iceland appeared to admit that Meijia had, at one point, been a supplier - but a spokesperson said: "We can confirm that Iceland is not, nor has not for a significant period, received any products from such sites. Meanwhile, Fastnet Fish said that as a result of the investigation it had terminated its relationship with Meijia.

At least three subsidiaries of the Shandong Meijia Group export seafood products outside of China to the United States and the European Union. This includes: Rizhao Meijia Aquatic Foodstuff (bait-to-plate, discussion), Rizhao Jiayuan Foodstuff (bait-to-plate, discussion), and Rizhao Meijia Keyuan Foods (bait-to-plate, discussion).

DHS said the decision to add the company to the list was largely triggered by reporting produced in the New Yorker by the Outlaw Ocean Project. This investigation was released in October 2023. It revealed that Shandong Meijia Group and its subsidiaries have employed labor from Xinjiang as recently as May 2023. In 2019, more than one hundred “Xinjiang employees'' were transferred to work at facilities owned by Shandong Meijia Group through a “poverty alleviation” program. According to Chinese media reports, in February 2020, a group of 39 workers returned to Shandong from Xinjiang to resume working at Meijia Group.

Social media posts on Douyin, the Chinese counterpart to TikTok, also show employees from Xinjiang at Shandong Meijia facilities. A video posted to Douyin on September 13, 2019, showed employees from Xinjiang dancing at a cultural celebration. The video title and a banner featured in the footage confirmed it was shot at a Meijia Group subsidiary, Rizhao Jiayuan Foodstuff Co. Ltd. Another video posted by the official Shandong Meijia Douyin account on the same day shows the same group of Xinjiang employees dancing.

The addition of Shandong Meijia Group to the UFLPA entity list is an important first step in ensuring seafood produced with Xinjiang forced labor is not entering the U.S. and ending up on the plates of unwitting Americans. However, the investigation by The Outlaw Ocean Project identified a number of other companies in China that use Xinjiang labor and export to the United States that remain unlisted. This includes Yantai Sanko Fisheries (bait-to-plate, discussion); Yantai Longwin Foods (bait-to-plate, discussion); The Chishan Group, including Shandong Haidu (bait-to-plate, discussion) and Rongcheng Haibo (bait-to-plate, discussion); Qingdao Tianyuan Aquatic Foodstuffs (bait-to-plate, discussion); and the Rongsense Group, including Rizhao Rirong Aquatic Products (bait-to-plate, discussion) and Rizhao Rongxing (bait-to-plate, discussion).

DHS officials said that the agency is still reviewing the rest of the companies cited by the Outlaw Ocean Project to decide whether additional ones will be added to the Entity List. Other federal agencies are also still engaged. The Department of Treasury is still reviewing a sanctions petition filed in January calling on the agency to impose sanctions against seven Chinese companies that the investigation found to be tied to serious human rights abuses committed against Uyghur workers in China’s seafood industry. The Customs and Border Protection is still reviewing two other legal filings submitted by NGOs in November 2023 requesting the agency to stop squid tied to Chinese distant water fishing vessels identified in an investigation from entering the country. Reporting on these petitions can be found here and here. Customs and Border Protection also received a formal letter from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a human rights and advocacy organization, calling for an immediate halt of shipments of seafood from nearly a dozen Chinese companies that were found to be using North Korean labor, in violation of U.S. law and U.N. sanctions. 

BACKDROP & RESOURCES

DHS’ press release announcing these additions can be found here DHS Adds PRC-Based Seafood, Aluminum, and Footwear Entities to Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Enforcement List | Homeland Security. Goods produced by these companies will be subject to the UFLPA rebuttable presumption based on the companies’ participation in labor transfer programs that target members of persecuted groups, including Uyghurs. Information about the UFLPA Entity List may be found on DHS’ UFLPA Entity List webpage: UFLPA Entity List | Homeland Security (dhs.gov).  Additional information, including frequently asked questions regarding the FLETF and the UFLPA may be found on DHS’ FLETF webpage: FLETF | Homeland Security (dhs.gov) and DHS’ UFLPA webpage:  UFLPA | Homeland Security (dhs.gov)

To track these and other developments tied to our investigation please check the Impact page on our website.

American lawmakers have directed their attention at companies, having written, for example, letters to Sysco and Costco inquiring how they plan to ensure that future audits will adequately prevent seafood tied to Xinjiang and North Korean forced labor from entering the United States. A bipartisan commission created by the White House and Congress held a hearing in October 2023 to discuss the presence of seafood made with forced labor on Chinese ships and in China’s processing factories throughout the U.S. supply chain.

In the United Kingdom and Canada, sanctions petitions were also filed, calling on their respective governments to implement sanctions against the same seven Chinese companies named in the U.S. petition. And in Europe, Members of the European Parliament sent a letter to the European Commission and the President of the European Parliament following up on Le Monde's publication of The Outlaw Ocean Project investigation that revealed potential ties between a company that the investigation tied to North Korean labor and a European company supplying catering services to the European Parliament.