19 U.S.C. § 293
Section 293 · Documented vessels touching at foreign ports
Amended 3 times on record
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Any United States documented vessel with a registry or coastwise endorsement, or both, may engage in trade between one port in the United States and one or more ports within the same, with the privilege of touching at one or more foreign ports during the voyage, and land and take in thereat merchandise, passengers and their baggage, and letters, and mails.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Codification
R.S. §3126 derived from act May 27, 1848, ch. 48, §1, 9 Stat. 232.
Amendments
1996—Pub. L. 104–295 inserted comma after “or both”.
1993—Pub. L. 103–182 substituted “Any United States documented vessel with a registry or coastwise endorsement, or both” for “Any vessel, on being duly registered in pursuance of the laws of the United States,” and struck out at end “All such vessels shall be furnished by the appropriate customs officers of the ports at which they shall take in their cargoes in the United States, with certified manifests, setting forth the particulars of the cargoes, the marks, number of packages, by whom shipped, to whom consigned, at what port to be delivered; designating such merchandise as is entitled to drawback, or to the privilege of being placed in warehouse; and the masters of all such vessels shall, on their arrival at any port of the United States from any foreign port at which such vessel may have touched, as herein provided, conform to the laws providing for the delivery of manifests of cargo and passengers taken on board at such foreign port, and all other laws regulating the report and entry of vessels from foreign ports, and be subject to all the penalties therein prescribed.”
1970—Pub. L. 91–271 substituted reference to appropriate customs officers for reference to collectors.
Effective Date of 1970 Amendment
For effective date of amendment by Pub. L. 91–271, see section 203 of Pub. L. 91–271, set out as an Effective Date of 1970 Amendment note under section 1500 of this title.
Transfer of Functions
Functions of all officers of Department of the Treasury and functions of all agencies and employees of such Department transferred, with certain exceptions, to Secretary of the Treasury, with power vested in him to authorize their performance or performance of any of his functions, by any of those officers, agencies, and employees, by Reorg. Plan No. 26 of 1950, §§1, 2, eff. July 31, 1950, 15 F.R. 4935, 64 Stat. 1280, 1281, set out in the Appendix to Title 5, Government Organization and Employees. Customs officers, referred to in this section, are under Department of the Treasury.