DOJ hires prosecutors to stop tariff cheating and smuggling
H.R. 1869 — Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act of 2026 · Filed by Ashley Hinson (R-IA) · 44 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 5, 2025 · Passed chamber
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What it does
The bill creates a new task force in the Department of Justice. It will investigate and prosecute trade crimes. It covers tariff cheating, smuggling, and trade-based money laundering. It also covers breaking import and export laws. The DOJ must hire new prosecutors and staff. It must work with other federal groups and trading partners. It must send yearly reports to Congress.
Who it affects
Workers, consumers, and companies are affected. Tariff cheating hurts domestic workers. Smuggling brings unsafe goods into the country. Trade-based money laundering fuels organized crime.
One thing to notice
The task force covers many crimes tied to trade. These are tariff cheating, smuggling, money laundering, labor trafficking, and health and safety rule-breaking. Congress will get yearly reports on spending and results.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
44 cosponsors: 27 Democrats, 16 Republicans, 1 Independents.
- Mar 5, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Mar 5, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
- Jun 3, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Jun 3, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 23 - 0”
- Aug 31, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote”
- Aug 31, 2026 — Floor vote scheduled · Congress.gov: “Mr. Schmidt moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 3 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $1,550,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 94 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 41% of bills with any report.
Ashley Hinson, who sponsored the bill, received $972,500 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- AFL-CIO — $1,520,000 in 2 reports
- American Foundry Society — $30,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- tariff cheating — Illegally avoiding taxes on goods brought into the country.
- smuggling — Illegally moving goods across borders to avoid taxes or laws.
- trade-based money laundering — Using fake trade deals to hide illegal money and make it look legal.
- task force — A group of people brought together to work on one specific problem.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (6,377 characters) on Jun 11, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-01.
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