Request for Reimbursement for Additional Personnel at Miami International Airport

The issue was whether current law permits the U.S. Customs Service to use funds received from outside sources to provide for additional Customs inspectors perform clearance functions during regular business hours. Problems existed for a number of years at the Miami International Airport with regard to long delays in clearing international passengers through the Immigration and Customs area. An alternative suggested by the Miami Airport Authority, as well as business and community leaders in Dade County, was for the airport or airlines to reimburse Treasury in order to permit Customs to hire additional staff. Legislation was enacted to allow Federal agencies to recoup from identifiable "special beneficiaries" where services rendered inured to the benefit of special recipients, not the general public. In the present case, the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to designate places in the United States as ports of entry for aircraft arriving in the United States and to assign such Customs personnel as he may deem necessary. Miami has been designated as such a port. Therefore, the Secretary was required to furnish Customs employees to serve the general public during regular business hours to the extent that he was required to furnish employees to serve the general public at other U.S. ports of entry for aircraft. Congress has specifically authorized Customs to collect from the parties in interest for the additional expenses incurred when its employees perform services for such parties at night or on Sundays and holidays. Further, Customs was authorized to collect fees for specified special services during normal working hours. In this case, there was nothing to indicate that any special services would be performed for any individual passenger or airline. Since Congress has appropriated monies to provide for the salaries of Customs inspectors to perform clearance functions during the regular business hours and has authorized the collection of fees only for certain special services, the collection of funds for clearance services performed during regular business hours on behalf of the general public would constitute an augmentation of the appropriations made by Congress. Accordingly, there was no authority to permit Customs to use reimbursable funds collected from the airport, airlines, or Dade County to provide for inspectors to perform their clearance duty at the Miami International Airport during regular business hours.