The United States Customs Service was an agency of the U.S. federal government that collected import tariffs and performed other selected border security duties.
In March 2003, it was rolled into form part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The United States Customs Service had three major missions: collecting tariff revenue, protecting the U.S. economy from smuggling and illegal goods, and processing people and goods at ports of entry.
Read more about United States Customs Service: History, Examples of Illegal Items, Commissioners
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, customs and/or service:
“United States! the ages plead,—
Present and Past in under-song,—
Go put your creed into your deed,—
Nor speak with double tongue.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control—”indoctrination” we might say—exercised through the mass media.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.”
—William McKinley (1843–1901)
“We set up a certain aim, and put ourselves of our own will into the power of a certain current. Once having done that, we find ourselves committed to usages and customs which we had not before fully known, but from which we cannot depart without giving up the end which we have chosen. But we have no right, therefore, to claim that we are under the yoke of necessity. We might as well say that the man whom we see struggling vainly in the current of Niagara could not have helped jumping in.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“Finally, your lengthy service ended,
Lay your weariness beneath my laurel tree.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8)