The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday added three Chinese companies to a list that can no longer export products to the United States as part of a further crackdown on companies it says are assisting forced labor programs in Xinjiang.

These companies include seafood processor Shandong Meijia Group,Illegal marine projectsAn investigation by the China Times found that the company employed laborers brought to eastern China from Xinjiang, a far western region where the government has detained and monitored large numbers of ethnic minorities, including the Uighurs.

Another banned company, Xinjiang Shenhuo Coal and Electricity, is aAluminum processing companiesThe U.S. government said a third company, Dongguan Oasis Shoe Co., brought Uighurs and other persecuted groups to its shoe factory in Guangdong.

With the addition of these companies, 68 now appear on the list of entities that the U.S. government says are involved in forced labor programs, nearly double the number at the beginning of the year.

Robert Silvers, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and chairman of the committee that oversees the list, said the administration is accelerating the pace of additions to the list and the public should expect that trend to continue.

“If companies engage in forced labor, we will hold them accountable,” he said.

Industries using cotton and tomatoes were among the first to notice supply chain links to Xinjiang’s farmlands.solar panelCompanies that make textiles, flooring, cars, electronics, seafood and other goods are finding that they, too, are using parts made in Xinjiang.

The United States implemented the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act two years ago, banning imports of products produced in whole or in part in Xinjiang.

The Chinese government has run programs in the region to move local people to factories, farmland and mines around Xinjiang and elsewhere in China. Authorities say the programs are aimed at alleviating poverty, but human rights experts say they are often coercive.

The two-year-old law also created the Entity List, a collection of companies that U.S. officials believe are linked to forced labor programs. Despite reports of the scale of the labor programs in Xinjiang, the government initially did not include many companies on the list.

Silvers said the list “definitely needs an expansion period.”

“We didn’t have the procedures, the staff, the work rules to do this,” he said, adding that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Law provided no new funding for the department. “So we dug deep and mobilized resources from other areas to lean into this priority area,” he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that the Department of Homeland Security will continue to investigate companies that use forced labor and hold those entities accountable. “We urge stakeholders across industry, civil society, and our international partners to work with us to eliminate the suffering of forced labor,” he said.

Last month, the Commerce Department announced that 26 companies related to the apparel and textile industries were added to the list, and Silvers said it will continue to announce new additions on a rolling basis as evidence suggests the list needs to be expanded.

last month,Several major automakersIt was discovered that it had imported parts produced by a company linked to forced labor in Xinjiang, causing the products to be intercepted at U.S. ports.