CBP's Accuracy Rate of Shipment Detentions is Down - Is AI To Blame?

*Editor's note: On March 31st, CBP corrected a clerical error to its US forced labor enforcement dashboard that resulted in an overcount of stopped shipments. This blog post has been updated to reflect these revised metrics.

The US government has turned to AI-generated supply chain maps to drive enforcement of the US Forced Labor ban and anti-corruption measures. But these databases are highly inaccurate - as the plummeting rate of successful CBP detentions readily shows.

CBP's detention accuracy rate has dropped significantly year over year, from 87% in FY2025 to just 40% in FY2026. Recently, CBP has touted the use of AI-generated supply chain databases that try to infer connections between companies by mining publicly available trade statistics. Could the reliance on AI-driven supply chain data be the reason why successful detentions have fallen so drastically in just a few months? 

AI-generated data has been promoted as a quick and easy solution for supply chain mapping. But these shortcut solutions can often be inaccurate. That’s because the AI-generated relationships are full of false positives: between 80-90% of commercial relationships asserted by AI are based on outdated, incomplete, and totally irrelevant data. Due to the “rebuttable presumption” essential to the U.S. forced labor ban, U.S. Customs and Border Protection does not have to justify the accuracy of the intel used to justify the detentions and seizures they make; the onus is on the importers facing the detention to provide clear and convincing evidence of a complete chain of custody to demonstrate that forced labor was not present in the manufacturing of the detained goods. 

Presenting CBP With Verifiable Data Increases Likelihood of Getting Shipments Released 

The likelihood you will be able to successfully contest a detention increases if you are able to produce credible, verifiable and supplier-attested supply chain data. A so-called CBP "release package" should include the following key elements representing the goods in your detained shipment:

• An executive summary

• Supply chain map(s) that include names and physical addresses of all manufacturers, a detailed bill of materials (BOM), and the role that each entity plays in the supply chain

• Transaction-level traceability, otherwise known as a complete chain of custody

• Plausibility of production, which may include employee timecards, inventory logs, factory photos and more

• Commodity-specific evidence

For more information on what to include in a CBP release package, read more here.

Don't Waste Your Time with False Positives Generated by AI

Every false positive triggers an internal investigation that can take weeks or months to prepare a defense to CBP - but with the 30 day window allotted to respond in the event of a detention, this is time your business can't afford. Investing in supply chain mapping that relies on authentic, verifiable and supplier-attested data will prepare your company to respond to CBP detentions in 2026.

Companies can map their supply chains with authentic tier-n data in a matter of days. Ensure your business is prepared. To learn more about how Sourcemap can help your business collect accurate supply chain data that is admissible to customs, reach out to our team of experts.  

Next Steps

Since 2011, Sourcemap has provided the only system of record for verifiable n-tier supply chain data to manage the biggest risks and compliance hurdles in global trade. Our team is in regular communication with regulators and enforcement agencies and provides best-in-class software to defend companies against audits, investigations and enforcement actions especially CBP detentions. Reach out to our experts to learn how your supply chain can be future-proofed for CBP compliance and general resilience: www.sourcemap.com